Shenzhen’s Pingshan district has landed a national endorsement for something distinctly local: a test ground where cars, drones and sea routes are treated as one connected transport system.
The ‘sea-air-land integrated’ smart-connected transport testing scenario was named among the 2025 reform典型案例 (model cases) of the national independent-innovation demonstration zone. For a district better known for factories, it is a statement of intent about what comes after manufacturing.
A platform built before the rules existed
Pingshan was the first area in China to open intelligent-connected vehicles to commercial use across its entire jurisdiction, relying on special zone legislation rather than a patchwork of permits. On that foundation it built the Bay Area Smart Link test field, the only government-invested smart-connected transport demonstration platform in the Greater Bay Area.
The site covers 645 mu (about 43 hectares) and cost roughly 800 million yuan. It opened in 2024 and was upgraded in October 2025 into the region’s largest integrated sea-air-land testing base.
It packs four specialised take-off and landing sites, a combined laboratory building, 5G-A base stations, low-altitude radar and weather stations, building a digital backbone that can certify every category of drone while testing how ground vehicles and aircraft share the same airspace.
Safety as the price of openness
Pingshan runs a vehicle-road-cloud regulatory platform that logs and traces the operation of vehicles and drones in real time, with tiered management of unmanned devices and procedures for traffic and flight incidents. The point is to make innovation controllable, not just possible.
The district is no stranger to industry. It hosts four national-level platforms spanning biotech, new-energy vehicles, advanced manufacturing and a comprehensive bonded zone, and its GDP rose 10.5 per cent in 2025 with more than 1,000 national high-tech enterprises. The test field is meant to convert that base into a magnet for self-driving and drone companies.
If the model holds, Pingshan will have done more than build a track. It will have written a playbook other cities can copy.
Translated and adapted from Shenzhen News (sznews.com).
Source: https://www.sznews.com/news/content/2026-07/31/content_32137698.htm