Abstract: To address the insufficient corrosion resistance and high cost of stainless steel bipolar plates for hydrogen fuel cells, a novel austenitic stainless steel for PEMFC bipolar plates was developed by substituting nitrogen for molybdenum and increasing the chromium content. Compared with 316L stainless steel, the novel austenitic stainless steel exhibited a 0.208 V_MSE increase in corrosion potential and a three-order-of-magnitude decrease in corrosion current density, indicating significantly reduced corrosion susceptibility and reaction rates. Following 6 hours of potentiostatic polarization at 0.23 V_MSE (the cathode operating potential of PEMFC), the corrosion current density was 0.34 μA/cm², which meets the DOE 2025 target (below 1 μA/cm²). Furthermore, the polarization resistance (R_p) of the novel austenitic stainless steel reached 2.3×10⁶ Ω, approximately 41 times that of 316L stainless steel, substantially suppressing the corrosion reaction kinetics. Mott-Schottky analysis revealed that the passive film formed on the novel austenitic stainless steel possesses a lower oxygen vacancy concentration, which inhibits aggressive fluoride ion attack and thereby enhances corrosion resistance.