Tax incentives have brought the new operations center of the PISCES VI submarine to the Canary Islands

The southern port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has become the new operations center for the PISCES VI submarine, a company from the United States. This vehicle has a deep dive with state-of-the-art technology, submergibility of 2,180m and capacity for 3 people, along with the pilot. A good opportunity for the economy and for start-ups in the Canary Islands that can facilitate the implementation of activities for the initiative.

PISCES VI is a private initiative that was born with the aim of providing deep immersion capacity in the oceans to scientific institutions, both public and private, that could not afford such infrastructure. Along with this scientific purpose, PISCES VI also offers the possibility of immersion for cinematographic, tourist, archaeological or industrial work, among others. It is at this point where start-ups can enter, PISCES VI could make use of Canarian talent to develop more efficient work.

At first, only the territories of China, Japan, France, and the USA used these deep-diving submarines for scientific studies since the cost was very high, but the CEO and founder of PISCES VI, Scott Waters, has chosen the territory of the Canary Islands because being an island of volcanic origin very interesting geological and oceanographic characteristics can be found. In addition, due to this, it has a great slope from the abyssal plains, at a depth of 3,000 meters, and that is why Waters saw a unique opportunity to develop immersions.

The creator of PISCES VI had the support of Why Tenerife, the Oceanographic Institute of the Canary Islands, Red Cide (to search for funding and to connect with other agents) and PROEXCA (to publicize the project at a local, national and international level) to carry out this initiative.

As Scott Waters recounts, “we have also recently joined the ZEC [Canary Islands Special Zone], which undoubtedly presents a great advantage for the development of our activities due to tax incentives.” In addition, he adds “Tenerife is the base of operations, but the submarine has the great competitive advantage of being able to be transferred to any point in the world using only two 20-foot containers (5.90 meters long), as planned by example at the end of the year with a scientific mission to Antarctica. Therefore, the submarine will go on scientific missions all over the planet, combined with activities at the local level between mission and international mission.”

*Translated by Daniel Rodríguez