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For a clearly defined use case, one can usually find a solution. The use case here is China's airspace below 1,000 metres, which is set to become very crowded with drones very soon. The solution, engineers and government officials say, is artificial intelligence.

“Without AI, there is no intelligent, connected sky, and without AI, embodied flying vehicles cannot be truly intelligent,” one expert said at a recent conference in Hangzhou.

Shenzhen is building the first AI-assisted system to coordinate drone routes in real time, avoid collisions from an unmanned control centre, and predict flight movements across large fleets.

With the low-altitude economy about to take off, large models and embodied AI are getting ready to serve as “traffic lights in the sky.”

With around 70 types of eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft currently under development in China, and officials in Beijing eager to issue licences and nurture China’s next “trillion‑yuan industry”, the biggest bottleneck is safety.

We devoted this week’s “AI + Mobility” section of the China AI2X Briefing to the explore how AI will be employed to build the world's first intelligent airspace:

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The Chinese government has announced a plan for integrating the industrial internet and AI. At least 50,000 enterprises are to be equipped with networks of a "new type" empowered with large models and AI agents until 2028, in order to "strengthen the manufacturing industry".

This "Action Plan on Industrial Internet and Artificial Intelligence Integration and Empowerment” was published on January 6, 2026 by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in Beijing.

With its highly efficient industrial policy and command over large state-run enterprises, Beijing has the power to put this plan into action. Speeding up the deployment of industrial AI is part of a new economic development paradigm of China's central leadership that wants science and technology to act as new growth drivers for the economy while the population is ageing and external pressure against the old export-led model is rising.

We expect this plan to have a measurable impact on the development of physical and industrial AI in China in the coming years and devote the "AI + Manufacturing" section of this week's China AI2X Briefing to present its main points and analyse the reasons for its announcement:

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Artificial intelligence is increasing China’s importance in global supply chains for semiconductor equipment.

The rising demand for chips is beneficial for China in two ways. First, the overall market for semiconductor equipment continues to grow, and China is already the biggest market globally.

Second, AI-driven growth is presenting Chinese equipment makers with new opportunities to break into markets long dominated by Western and Japanese companies.

Analysts argue that the AI boom is the best gift bestowed upon the Chinese semiconductor industry at the best possible moment. While strong growth in China benefits international equipment manufacturers for the foreseeable future, it also creates ideal growth opportunities for Chinese rivals to break into one niche market after another.

In this week's "AI + Electronics" section of the China AI2X Briefing, we discuss examples of China’s up‑and‑coming equipment makers:

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When artificial intelligence starts saving cancer patients' lives, we should take note. This is what recently happened at a hospital in Ningbo in eastern China. With an AI model and non-contrast CT scans, doctors found pancreatic cancer and were able to intervene early.

Qiu Sijun, a 57-year-old retired bricklayer, had undergone a routine checkup for diabetes. With the help of AI, Dr. Zhu Kelei discovered a small tumor in his pancreas. As the cancer was early-stage, it could be removed successfully.

This success story of AI deployment in healthcare has recently been reported by both the New York Times and the People’s Daily, marking an encouraging reframing of the "AI race" narrative. Yes, there may be a technology race between China and the U.S., but there is also a race between A.I. and cancer. The last one is fought everywhere.

A large model was used here to enhance non-contrast CT scans, which are inexpensive and widely used. The combination of the two technologies raises hopes for progress in early cancer detection worldwide.

In this week's “AI + Health” section of the free China AI2X Briefing, we report about the international partnerships under way to bring this medical breakthrough to several countries:

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China has begun to modernise its coal mining industry by installing big amounts of cameras and acoustic sensors deep under the earth. The data they gather are fed into vertical large models like the newly released "Solstone Mining Large Model", the first industry-level foundation model in the country.

The Chinese Institute of Coal Sciences (CICS), a subsidiary of the state-run China Coal Technology & Engineering Group, has developed the large model, which is now to be rolled out and adapted in the approximately 4,300 coal mines across the country to increase their safety and efficiency.

While China is quickly building capacity for renewable resources such as solar and wind power, coal is currently still responsible for around half of the total energy consumption in the country.

While the relative importance of coal in the energy mix has been steadily falling, total coal production has still risen in recent years due to the huge energy demand of China's fast-growing economy. AI is seen as an important tool to manage these resources as efficiently and sustainable as possible.

For concrete examples of how China is upgrading its coal mines and making them safer for miners, please refer to the "AI + Energy" section of the free China AI2X Briefing: