Vehicle-road-cloud integration is crucial for advancing the next phase of industrial applications for intelligent connected vehicles, with pilot projects nationwide showing significant progress, said industry experts.

More complex than single-vehicle intelligence, vehicle-road-cloud integration uses artificial intelligence and technologies such as Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) and 5G to enable seamless collaboration between humans, vehicles, roads and cloud systems.

When vehicles are driving down a road, real-time perception information obtained by roadside infrastructure will be transmitted to the cloud, where it will be analyzed, processed and controlled in collaboration with vehicles to enhance their autonomous driving capabilities.

Su Bo, former vice-minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said: "Intelligent connected vehicles with a focus on vehicle-road-cloud integration play a crucial role for driving new productivity, high-quality development and gaining competitive advantages in the automotive industry."

Speaking at the Fourth Shenyang Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference in Liaoning province on Aug 17, Su highlighted that the development of vehicle-road-cloud integration marks a significant shift for China's vehicle networking industry.

Large-scale construction of vehicle-road-cloud projects have begun this year. In early July, the MIIT and four other central government departments selected 20 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, to pilot vehicle-road-cloud integration for ICVs.

In mid-August, Nanjing in Jiangsu province announced plans to fully open its roads for ICV testing and demonstration by 2026. The city aims for its ICV industry to exceed 300 billion yuan ($42.05 billion) in annual revenue and to complete the intelligent upgrade of 3,700 intersections by that year.

Changchun in Jilin province announced in July it would invest 12.7 billion yuan over three years to develop such infrastructure for key transport areas including hubs, urban roads, expressways and highways.

Wuhan's project in Hubei province, approved in June, has a 17-billion-yuan budget. Meanwhile, Beijing's 9.94-billion-yuan project will cover 6,050 road intersections across 2,324 square kilometers in its Tongzhou, Shunyi and Chaoyang districts.

At the Fourth Shenyang Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference, the host city unveiled its vehicle-road-cloud integration initiative. It includes more than 100 km of smart roads, the first Level 4 autonomous driving test road in Northeast China and a smart bus line projected to serve 250,000 passengers annually.

Future expansions will introduce unmanned cleaning, vending, delivery, logistics and smart parking, positioning the city as a leader in smart technology applications.

Despite progress in vehicle-road-cloud integration pilot projects, challenges remain, said Li Keqiang, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, at the conference. He noted that many cities have struggled to create effective commercial models despite significant investments.

Li identified eight key commercial application scenarios to address these challenges. These include smart public transport, highway logistics, urban logistics, intelligent charging and discharging and smart mines.

While cities are investing in vehicle-road-cloud integration, limited participation from carmakers leaves a critical gap, said Zhang Yongwei, vice-president and secretary-general of China EV 100, an industry think tank and the main organizer of the conference in Shenyang.

Fu Bin, senior director of the smart driving unit at Voyah, noted that high infrastructure costs, financial pressures and unresolved issues in system compatibility and regulations pose challenges for automakers in the early stages of vehicle-road-cloud integration.

Fu suggested involving more automakers in the research and development of vehicle-road-cloud integration and expediting the development of relevant regulations and standards.

Zhang at China EV 100, said that the vehicle-road-cloud system empowers traffic management as a smart solution in China, with data being key to its sustainable commercial operation.

"Turning data into assets and enabling graded and classified data mining and operations, is essential for achieving commercial returns," Zhang said.

A report by China Fortune Securities predicts that the market size for smart roadside infrastructure will finally reach about 404.7 billion yuan, 132.7 billion yuan for highway infrastructure and 29.6 billion yuan for cloud-based services.

Data from the MIIT show that China has built 17 national ICV testing zones and seven vehicle networking pilot zones. The country has opened more than 32,000 km of test roads, issued more than 7,700 test licenses and logged more than 120 million km in testing.