Competing for the Low-Altitude Economy, Guangzhou Gathers Momentum for a Soaring Take-off
The First Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area High-Quality Development Conference on Low-Altitude Economy convened in Guangzhou on December 25. Having been written into the government work report for two consecutive years and formally incorporated into the proposals for the 15th Five-Year Plan, the low-altitude economy has evolved from a booming industrial trend into a key national medium and long-term strategy. As a core engine of the Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou has already taken off: the world’s first fully certified manned unmanned aircraft was born here, the world’s largest manufacturing base for flying cars has been completed, China’s first low-altitude aircraft wind tunnel has been put into operation, and the country’s first intelligent customs clearance model for low-altitude transportation in a comprehensive bonded zone has been launched. Drone inspection and delivery services have also transitioned from futuristic visions into daily life. A vivid reality of a “City in the Sky” is rapidly unfolding over the millennial commercial metropolis.
Institutional Safeguards: Paving the Runway for Low-Altitude Flight
Developing the low-altitude economy requires not only the courage to pursue innovation and breakthroughs, but also solid and effective institutional support. Earlier this year, Guangzhou listed the low-altitude economy and aerospace industry as strategic pioneering sectors in its “12218” modern industrial system. It has systematically built six pillars covering policies, infrastructure, industries, application scenarios, safety and regional coordination, driving the industry to steadily advance from pilot exploration to large-scale high-quality development, and positioning itself as a national benchmark city for innovation and breakthroughs in the low-altitude economy.
Institutional guarantees form the cornerstone of the low-altitude economy’s development. Guangzhou has established a tangible promotion mechanism featuring “municipal-level overall planning, district-level coordination and inter-departmental synergy”, and set up an Office for the Development of the Low-Altitude Economy and Aerospace Industry, with dedicated working teams established in all districts to ensure the rapid implementation of policies. The collaborative model of “government guidance + market operation + industry self-regulation” has kept the communication channels between the government and enterprises unimpeded.
In terms of policy systems, the Regulations on the Development of the Low-Altitude Economy of Guangzhou Municipality provides legal safeguards, the Implementation Plan for the Development of the Low-Altitude Economy of Guangzhou Municipality clarifies objectives and tasks, and the Several Measures of Guangzhou Municipality for Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Low-Altitude Economy strengthens policy support. Guangzhou has also issued the country’s first municipal-level technical guidelines for the construction of low-altitude infrastructure, setting the Guangzhou Standards for the development of various take-off and landing facilities.
Factor guarantees have kept pace. A 10-billion-yuan aerospace industry fund is being planned, and characteristic platforms such as the Low-Altitude Eco-city are accelerating construction. For talent reserves, South China University of Technology has become one of the first universities in China to offer an undergraduate major in Low-Altitude Technology and Engineering. The cultivation of professional talents has injected a steady stream of vitality into industrial development.
Leap-forward in Intelligent Manufacturing: Mass Production Lines Propel Capacity Take-off
Guangzhou’s development of the low-altitude economy is by no means a simple pursuit of “aircraft manufacturing”, but an exploration of potential and systemic upgrading based on its solid manufacturing foundation. At present, the city is home to more than 4,200 enterprises in the low-altitude economy industrial chain, ranking second nationwide, including 65 core enterprises. A closed full industrial chain integrating scientific research and innovation, high-end manufacturing, scenario operation and service support has taken shape.
Breakthroughs in the manufacturing sector are particularly crucial. In November this year, XPeng HT Aero’s flying car mass production plant in Huangpu District, Guangzhou, completed trial production and successfully rolled off the first unit of the “Land Aircraft Carrier” aerial vehicle, marking the commissioning of the world’s first mass production line for flying cars. It is also the world’s first factory to carry out mass production of flying cars through modern assembly lines; at full capacity, the production line can roll out one aerial vehicle every 30 minutes.
Reporters at the test base saw that the detachable flying car “Land Aircraft Carrier” has been vividly described as “the world’s only car with a trunk that can hold an aircraft, and the world’s only aircraft that can fit into a car trunk”. With just a tap on a mobile phone, the aircraft can be stowed into the car or automatically deployed in only five minutes. In October this year, the “Land Aircraft Carrier” secured its first batch of 600 orders from the Middle East market.
Meanwhile, EHang Intelligent’s EH216-S, the world’s first eVTOL model to obtain the four core certifications—Operational Certificate (OC), Type Certificate (TC), Production Certificate (PC) and Standard Airworthiness Certificate (AC)—has received more than 100 overseas orders. In addition, XAG’s agricultural drones hold a leading domestic market share, and hydrogen-powered drones by Yunt Technology and high-rise fire-fighting drones by Walkera have established leading advantages in their respective niche segments.
Scenario Implementation: The Low-Altitude Economy Enters Ordinary People’s Lives
Low altitude is in the sky, and the economy is grounded; taking off is for the sake of landing solidly.
As a city with a population of over 10 million, diverse commercial forms and complex urban governance, Guangzhou serves as a realistic testing ground for the low-altitude economy. At present, low-altitude applications in Guangzhou cover six major sectors including logistics, transportation, emergency response, culture and tourism, with more than 100 specific scenarios in operation.
At the Huangpu Comprehensive Bonded Zone, drones carrying bonded goods have become a regular sight shuttling back and forth. In April this year, the country’s first intelligent customs clearance model for low-altitude transportation in a comprehensive bonded zone was launched here, enabling customs authorities to implement full-process intelligent supervision of goods transported by drones. “This model applies to high-value and time-sensitive cargo, and is expected to save enterprises about 50% of logistics time and cut comprehensive costs by over 10%,” introduced Lin Canbin, Chief of the Inspection Section of Suidong Customs under Huangpu Customs.
The dream of manned low-altitude travel is becoming a reality. The Guangzhou-Shenzhen low-altitude business air route has built a “30-minute Greater Bay Area business travel circle”, and the Panyu intercity flight network connects urban clusters in the Greater Bay Area. EHang Intelligent has launched eVTOL manned test flights at Tiande Plaza and Haixinsha, and carried out internal tests for commercial operation relying on the Guangzhou-Hong Kong Future City, with an expected daily passenger flow of 10,000 in the future.
In the public service sector, drones have become capable “airborne assistants”. 19 helicopter landing sites have been built across 17 medical institutions in the city, winning precious time for emergency medical rescue. Drones play an active role in various inspections: drone-based power line inspections have reduced manual tower climbing work by 90%, and drones have also assisted in the regulation of over 4.66 million square meters of illegal construction.
Scenarios in culture, tourism and agriculture are equally remarkable. The “Aerial Tour” in Panyu and low-altitude tourism projects in Conghua are highly popular among tourists; XAG’s “Super Farm” has realized unmanned operations. At the Jinfeng Orchard in Zengcheng, pesticide spraying for a 300-mu lychee garden has been cut from 9 workers taking 3 days to just 2 workers finishing in 3 hours, slashing labor costs by up to 50%.
Infrastructure Construction: Building an Integrated Air-Space-Ground Infrastructure System
In the future, low-altitude aircraft will become more diverse in type, function and quantity. How to manage this increasingly busy airspace? The key lies in building an information superhighway for the low-altitude economy. Currently, Guangzhou is building a nationally leading integrated air-space-ground infrastructure system, centering on airspace guarantee, underpinned by facility networks and supported by smart platforms.
The invisible airspace is now under centimeter-level precise control. Guangzhou has completed a comprehensive survey of airspace resources across the city, optimized grid classification, and introduced BeiDou grid code technology in Nansha and other areas to achieve refined airspace management. On the ground, the take-off and landing network is expanding rapidly: based on the country’s first municipal-level technical guidelines for low-altitude infrastructure construction, Guangzhou has built 9 filed general airports, over 100 take-off and landing facilities and hundreds of drone nests. Hub-type facilities such as the Pazhou Low-Altitude Flight Operation Center are accelerating development. The city’s first multi-functional low-altitude flight camp (located in Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center), integrating experience, sales and testing, has been put into operation, further advancing the realization of a commercial closed loop for the low-altitude economy.
Smart systems serve as the brain of aerial air routes. The municipal-level low-altitude flight service platform in Guangzhou has completed the development of eight core functions and achieved interconnection with national and provincial platforms. Guangzhou is exploring the construction of a low-altitude smart network integrating communication, navigation, surveillance, meteorology, countermeasures and computing power. Up to now, the city has built 116,000 5G base stations, with its coverage of 5G-A integrated communication and sensing base stations ranking among the top nationwide, providing reliable technical support for low-altitude flight.
Safety Protection: Building a Solid Safety Net for Low-Altitude Flight
To compete for the low-altitude economy, we need to fly fast, and more importantly, fly steadily. Safety is the lifeline of the low-altitude economy.
Guangzhou is committed to building a full-process safety guarantee system, exploring the management of a blacklist and whitelist for low-altitude flights, deploying mobile low-altitude police stations, helicopter-based low-altitude early warning aircraft and aerial detection equipment, and building a professional team of “air traffic police”.
Targeting illegal unmanned aerial vehicle flights (“black flights”) that threaten airspace safety, the public security bureau of Huadu District has built a full-chain governance system covering monitoring, identification, disposal and traceability. “Amid the complex electromagnetic environment around Baiyun Airport, we can accurately detect and identify drones with a precision rate of over 98% through multi-source data fusion technology,” said a relevant person in charge. During the 2024 Canton Fair, the system successfully forced down six unapproved aerial photography drones; it also built a solid low-altitude safety barrier throughout the 15th National Games in 2025.
Airworthiness certification and testing are the front-line gatekeepers for product safety. The Aircraft Certification Branch Center in Guangzhou provides airworthiness certification services for new aircraft types nationwide. The China Automotive Engineering Research Institute (Guangzhou) New Energy Aerial Vehicle Comprehensive Performance Pilot Test Platform has been selected into the first batch of key incubation lists of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and the Guangdong Low-Altitude Aircraft Pilot Test Platform of the Fifth Electronics Research Institute of MIIT is accelerating construction. These platforms offer more than 100 testing services from components to systems, forming a complete service system covering pilot test transformation, inspection and testing, airworthiness certification and safety guarantee. In addition, Guangzhou has been approved as a national pilot city for meteorological support for the high-quality development of the low-altitude economy, providing refined meteorological early warning services for flight safety.
Innovation platforms also underpin safe flight. In July this year, China’s first composite wind tunnel dedicated to aerodynamic research of low-altitude aircraft was put into operation at the Guangdong Aerospace Science and Technology Research Institute. Researchers test the aerodynamic characteristics of aircraft by simulating airflows. “This wind tunnel is built to serve enterprises, eliminating the need for them to conduct tests in other cities and greatly shortening their R&D cycles,” said the platform’s person in charge. Today, Guangzhou has gathered 22 scientific research platforms including South China University of Technology and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), with the number of patents related to low-altitude technology ranking fourth nationwide.
Collaborative Development: Co-writing a New Chapter for the Low-Altitude Economy in the Greater Bay Area
Guangzhou’s vision has never been confined to its own boundaries. As a core engine of the Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou is actively playing a demonstrative and leading role to promote regional coordinated development. China’s first Super Demonstration Application Scenario for the All-Space and All-Factor Unmanned System has been unveiled in Nansha, exploring the coordinated operation of unmanned equipment on land, sea, air and underground.
Breakthroughs in cross-regional connectivity are being made continuously. The longest intercity drone logistics route in the Greater Bay Area has completed a successful demonstration: a logistics drone took off from Tangjia Port in Zhuhai, transported seafood to Guangzhou across 82.9 kilometers, cutting travel time by about 60% compared with land transportation. Explorations of cross-border low-altitude air routes between Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as well as Guangzhou and Macao, are advancing in parallel. Hong Kong has set up a Low-Altitude Economy Development Task Force and launched a regulatory sandbox pilot; Macao is also actively laying out related industries. Leveraging institutional differences and market complementary advantages, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao are conducting cutting-edge explorations on rule connectivity, accumulating experience for the national development of the low-altitude economy.
From the first-mover trials of industrial policies to the systematic construction of regulations and standards, from being a “single-item champion” in manufacturing capacity to the flourishing of application ecosystems, Guangzhou is promoting the low-altitude economy to leap from “exploration and cultivation” to “high-quality development” with a full-chain mindset. What Guangzhou offers is not only a range of aerial vehicle products, but a complete systematic solution covering institutional design, infrastructure, industrial coordination, urban governance and even Greater Bay Area connectivity. Rooted in its pragmatic and pioneering spirit, this millennial commercial metropolis is boldly exploring the “uncharted territory” of the low-altitude economy, and contributing a replicable and verifiable Guangzhou Model to the standardized and large-scale development of China’s low-altitude economy.
