The Crown Estate has turned to a group of college students in a bid to use AI to generate sustainable energy from the seabed.

A group of students from Worcester Sixth Form College attended a Hackathon on Saturday (July 6) in London, winning the competition to create artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to help generate 50 per cent of the UK's energy supply sustainably from the seabed by 2050.

The event, arranged in collaboration with 'AI first' education provider Inversity, hosted over 50 contestants vying for attention at the Crown Estate's London headquarters.

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An expert judging panel was made up of Sam Miller, from Google's DeepMind Impact Accelerator, Jess Furness, UK director of Rewriting the Code, Cheryl Avery, head of marine operations at The Crown Estate and Dr John Kuht, CEO of Inversity.

Computer science A-level students aged between 16 and 18 formed the majority of the 14 teams that took part.

Participants also included non-profit workers and military veterans eyeing a career change to tech roles, and two machine learning Ph.D. graduates from Imperial College London.

The Worcester college students came out on top with an innovative and "visually-stunning" app-based solution winning a £1,000 cash prize.

Information about offshore developments in their area would be delivered to the public through the app.

The top performers throughout the competition will be offered internships at the Crown Estate's Marine business and Digital department.

Ms Avery said: "We've come a long way since the first offshore wind turbines were installed almost 25 years ago, but as we look ahead, we need fresh, innovative approaches to the goal of meeting net zero that take into account a growing number of demands on our seabed."

Aruj Haider, the Crown Estate's senior director of emerging technology and innovation, said: "We were inspired by the innovative proposals and are excited to bring more visionary young talent on board to shape a sustainable and thriving marine economy for the future.”

Dr Kuht said: “The hackathon allowed participants to apply their existing tech skillsets to a unique, sustainability focused challenge, set by The Crown Estate.

"Using their software and data science know-how, participating teams were able to develop engaging, scalable and implementable solutions to help solve a pressing environmental issue."