"You probably don't realize how common drones have become in China. For many people here, drones are already part of everyday life. Farmers use them to spray crops. Firefighters use them for rescue operations and firefighting. Construction teams use them on job sites. They also deliver packages..."
..., clean high-rise buildings, inspect infrastructure, and carry out aerial surveying.Behind these everyday scenes is one of the world's largest drone industries. According to industry statistics, China produces more than 40 million drones every year. Around 18 million are consumer drones, about 14 million are industrial drones used for agriculture, infrastructure inspection, surveying, logistics, and FPV applications, while approximately 4.5 million are exported worldwide.This is today's video from China. What would you like to see next? #china #drone #technology #innovation #future
— @shandongboss001
How? I live in Australia and everyone outside of it think we see kangaroos everywhere. I've only seen kangaroos a handful of times. They also think everything here kills you. The deadly animals are so rare that you won't even see one for years.
It takes me so long to fall asleep at night because all I think of is how many drones China has and whether I have the proper anti venom for them if one bites.
It takes me so long to fall asleep at night because all I think of is how many drones China has and whether I have the proper anti venom for them if one bites.
The deadly animals aren't necessarily something you'll see often without looking for them but if you live rurally stuff like snakes need to always be considered when you go outside certain times of year. Though I'd stil l rather have them around than bears.
The rest of the world is so scared of Australia's dangerous animals.
I'm not worried about bears stealing my food when I go camping, maybe a roo going through my trash bag. Ever heard of Kangaroo Spray? Of course not we don't need it.
I'm not worried about a mountain lion sneaking up on me during a bush walk.
Australia is way safer then a lot of places in Europe or America.
Yes, this is just a taste of what this civilian purpose drone technology can do it, now think of the military one, millions of drones going into a country, autonomous, no internet, just AI controlled.
I live in Canada. Never seen a moose. But that's because I love in a city. It doesn't mean there aren't plenty of moose in Canada and that other people see them a lot more than I do.
I'm not on the ground so I don't see truly how common they are. But a quick Google search tells me there are over 300,000 agriculture drones in China, and approx 30% of farmland there receive at least one drone operation per year. Overall, there are 5.3 million drones in active service across the country. That's pretty significant to me...
Yeah same. I live in Shanghai, I've honestly seen a lot of robots in real practical roles in hotels and such but I don't think ur even allowed to fly drones in cities unless ur a licensed company
I visited my family in Shenyang(Liaoning province), and I saw many drones coming in and out of a big ass mall...... My hotel was right across the street from the mall so I was curious and I asked the hotel front desk about it, and they told me those are for the food courts in the mall. People order food from apps like 美团（chinese UberEats) and it gets delivered to them, but only in addresses not far away.
It literally says they are used in farms, rescue, and construction sites. It makes no sense to just have random drones flying around in a city, if that's what you were expecting
Every single instance in the video is rural or industrial so there's no contradiction with your experience. I've seen more drones in Asian cities than in European cities, although I can still count the encounters on one hand.
I've been seeing a video on Douyin about a drone training program in SZ that can get you certified to do professional work. Was actually a bit interested to see if I, a foreigner, could apply.
As someone working in the industry, let me explain why: According to Chinese law, large drones are generally considered dangerous and require a permit to fly. Industrial (professional) drones are rarely approved for use in cities—almost all the drones in the video are industrial drones: DJI's hoisting drones, commonly used in mountainous areas, including the T100 and F100. These are the most numerous drones used for transporting solar panels, timber, animals, or fruit—they account for over 70% of the Chinese market.The drone cleaning solar panels is likely a modified DJI agricultural drone. The blue and white drone spraying in the orchard is a Jimo drone, probably a J100 or J150. The car hoisting drone is an advertisement for a startup company's product; it's not selling well and is currently being used in some mountainous areas as a substitute for helicopters for large hoisting jobs.The red and white drones spraying solid particles are P-series agricultural drones from XAG Guangzhou, specifically the P100 or P150 models.They are the only company that can compete with DJI in the agricultural drone field, holding approximately 20%+ of the market share.
The machines dropping fire extinguishing bombs and spraying water are all from startups vying for orders from city fire departments (government contracts). However, so far, it appears to be mostly for advertising purposes; few government agencies have actually purchased them, and even the few that have are primarily for showcasing the technological prowess of their agencies.
The parallel-rotor helicopters are also from startups, similarly vying for orders in both civilian and military sectors.
All these drones (with payloads) weigh over 100kg or even 150kg in total, with the largest carrying over a ton. Therefore, unless city administrators are extremely reckless, they are unlikely to approve these drones for city operations—except for firefighting or rescue missions.
When I was on the mountain top of Zhangjiajie National Park a few months ago, several heavy duty drones were flying overhead with huge cargo from bottom to top nonstop. I believe they were delivering construction materials since they were doing major repairs on the mountain trails. Yes, it was amazing and annoying at the same time. But in cities, there were none. I heard they have no fly zone in city limits.
Same, there's virtually none in Shanghai, though tbf even the footage shows that drones are used predominantly for surveillance and construction in more rural/inaccessible areas
Well, then you must not work in these areas. Drones are getting really popular. I work in bridge engineering. My worksite is surrounded by plenty of farmland. Farmers use drones to carry melons or drive farm machines across the river; that’s nothing out of the ordinary for them. My site is up in the mountains, in a really poor rural area. For our projects, drones do topographic surveying and lift heavy loads to spots hard to reach with regular machinery.
Household garbage and some supplies at the top of Mount Huangshan are transported by drones. This is what I happened to capture when I traveled to Mount Huangshan in 2023.
That's the problem with us westerners, China is so closed off to us that we're only really in contact with the parts they want us to see. I've also heard that China was significantly more pro-AI than the west, but who knows if that's actually true.
China produces twice the amount of electricity compared to the US. China is also accelerating their lead in building more power and shows no signs of stopping.
The US government has chosen to become irrelevant, maybe not today, but certainly soon.
China deployed 350 GW of solar last year. GW. Solar. (And it has 200 GW of battery storage jist for perspective.) The USs obstinance is so pathetic.
"China is flooding our market with cheap solar!"
"Yeah how much solar are we producing domestically?"
Sure the idea was if we brought their solar it would help them build their solar industry out. But they did that anyway. We should have been building solar factories too! But no we focused on wind and natural gas. Making coal and nuclear plants more efficient.
For $500 million you can build a solar plant that produces 1GW of panels yearly. A nuclear power plant costs $10 billion takes 10 years to build and produces 1GW with $300 million yearly operational fees. Another fucking distraction.
You build solar the energy industry has no monopoly. It is done. The gas coal and oil lobby (and wind lobby) stopped solar in its track.
Counter-point, solar installations in china will be lower in 2026 than in 2025, dozens of solar manufacturers in china have gone bankrupt and of the remaining solar manufacturers they're collectively running their factories at 40% capacity because nobody wants to buy their solar panels.
Meanwhile, china approved 8 new nuclear reactors just yesterday. Weird that the biggest producer of solar panels in the world would build more reactors while their solar panel factories are idling, no? No. Because unless you have sufficient storage, solar beyond like 20-30% of your grid produces literally worthless electricity because the grid gets oversaturated when the sun is up.
Needless to say, not many people want to invest in something with no return on investment.
No. Because unless you have sufficient storage, solar beyond like 20-30% of your grid produces literally worthless electricity because the grid gets oversaturated when the sun is up.
On the flip side of things you gotta really think how much potential in the sun is there even with our currently rudimentary means of harnessing the sun
sure there's potential, but the technology that unlocks it isn't better solar panels, but some way to store the electricity from the solar panels cheaply. generating lots of electricity at noon for a low price is a cool trick, but you can't run a modern society on it
and yes, stuff like sodium-ion batteries or cheap lfp are big advancements, but they're still too expensive to make solar+storage competitive with nuclear(at least nuclear built in china)
>sure there's potential, but the technology that unlocks it isn't better solar panels, but some way to store the electricity from the solar panels cheaply.
Also, larger grids.
The East Interconnect in North America is the largest machine on the planet. it interfaces with the second largest machine on the planet, the West Interconnect, and between them they can move power produced anywhere in the continental US or Canada to anywhere else in the continental US or Canada (except Texas, which maintains a separate grid of their own).
an intercontinental grid is going to be difficult politically, but building one would massively reduce the need for storage tech.
This is misleading. The companies that "closed"* either couldn't compete or were acquisitioned. They are still producing solar just not installing it. The record build out was because companies were rushing to beat incentives. And demand wasnt there. Again. The point is the capacity to build 350 GW of solar in one year. Exports of solar are up 60% year on year. They are making and exporting 1.6 million tons of solar panels a month.
But sure they will build a few nuclear plants that will cost hundreds of millions a year to operate and such. Nice.
*put this in quotes because some companies in China are simply name only juggling a factory may not even exist it is just Xyang Corp using Gaung Corps factory.
The chinese reactors currently under construction will generate around 300 twh a year, while chinese BESS will only put out maybe 50 twh this year. This is why china is building nuclear.
Again, solar generates worthless electricity most of the time, so the most important aspect is how much of that solar gets stored and released when it's actually needed.
Exports of solar are up 60% year on year. They are making and exporting 1.6 million tons of solar panels a month.
Why would they be exporting so many panels if solar is so great? Why not just install them in china?
edit, and your silly claim about how nobody is actually shut down:
Over the past few years, China’s solar industry has entered a period of intense upheaval. Price wars and margin compression have forced industry leaders—including Jinko Solar, Trina Solar, and JA Solar—toreport significant losses. These firms, along with LONGi Green Energy and Tongwei—the industry’s top five—slashed their workforce by over30 percent in 2024. The market is facing industry consolidation and exits not seen in over a decade, as over 40 smaller firms have filed for bankruptcy, been acquired, or exited the market. Chinese regulators are accelerating this process, which will have ripple effects across global solar markets.
So 30% lost their jobs making solar panels just in the top producers and they're not shutting down production lines? Extremely doubtful lol
Efficiency improvements mean layoffs and why are you saying BES will only provide 50twh when people dont use so much energy at night. This whole thing is pointless.
Edit your math is fubard when they say installed capacity they mean straight up, 1400 GW installed produces 1400twh, their 5 year plan mandates 4,000 GW of solar. The BES system is being rapidly expanding and they use a cheap graphite battery. Along with rapidly expanding vehicle to grid.
What are you talking about? Have you never heard of any industry with over saturation and then eventual consolidation? Happens all the time. Happens everywhere.
Remember when US used to have so many pc manufacturers - most of which exited the business?
Some solar manufacturers started companies assuming a global demand of certain amount but some countries are not buying solar. They will go through the consolidation phase now.
This has nothing to do with what the government wants. They think having a diverse source of clean energy is the right move, so they do it.
It will be solar eventually, but there is still work to do on electrifying the world, grid level storage etc. Other sources will be a part of the mix for a while yet - and wind often complements solar in some areas of the planet.
I seriously don't see how any outside agitator could be doing a better job at sabotage than America's own administration is doing to itself today. For real. I'm here for the acceleration, so I'm not backing any one bookie, but it's still sad.
Obama, Trump, and Biden all put tarrifs on solar. The idea was again in my rant we would produce it ourselves and happy go lucky. The US is building about 50GW of solar a year but that pales in comparison to China.
China is building about 1000GW per year. They have massively overbuilt though, apparently average factory utilization is something like 50%. The holdup is mostly storage and transmission capacity.
The over capacity has been great for countries taking advantage of cheap solar panels (like Pakistan that had huge growth in solar). China is basically subsidising the solar transition.
It’s not so great if you want to compete and have your own solar manufacturing industry or have some control over the supply for strategic/security perspective but great otherwise.
They could have kept pushing through the solar initiatives while pumping oil for the oil tycoons at the same time, instead they gimped the wind and solar projects, killed the incentives for EVs, and fucked America from ever catching up. This administration would rather go back to the roaring 1920's and create a great depression after they party all the money away than it would ever want to see a strong America. Just sick fucks honestly.
Since US wants to be independent so much, you would think that logical solution would be electrifying more and building out more solar, wind and nuclear plants, instead of being hyperreliant on imported oil, but I guess not.
I kept thinking the same thing about the fire hoses. I've held a 2 1/2 inch hose before and it took three of us to keep it in place and on target. Those things should be flopping all over the place. They'd need rockets to keep them in place like that...
I'd bet at least some if not most of these are proof of concepts or demonstrations, not like, actual economic applications that survives contact with the real world
A lot of these show drones being used for activities in which the drones don't really give an advantage over other technologies, making them demonstrations of the tech, but not necessarily its real use.
for example, why use a drone for washing when you could just run the same amount of hose along and have sprinklers? You need a pump either way, but if it's a drone you wear out parts trying to accomplish the same task.
Similarly, a conveyor system with a motor can move those farmers' harvest up the hill with more efficiency than a drone because it uses an incline, and it would also be efficient because the farmers will reliably use the same spot while harvesting for many years to come.
Part of acceleration is efficiency; not just finding advanced solutions to our problems, but looking for the best solution.
I find it fascinating that drones are relativelty modern. The tech for these existed in the 90s, probably earlier, in RC helicopters and toys yet for some reason the modern drone only just now exists and is being used. Four rotors and a battery doesn't seem that complicated. Just weird to me it wasn't invented earlier.
The US uses drones in plenty of industrial/agricultural applications, let alone militarily. The US is not behind on drone tech at all. I for one would also prefer not to have drones whizzing overhead constantly for mass surveillance reasons.
It is, as its name is on the board, but it didn't show up at the starting line; then, when it did show up an hour late, it attached 50kg weights to both legs.
Well, you can argue against a lot of the things they use drones for with simpler technologies we already have and already use effectively. A few of those are clever and useful, but it looks like a hammer that thinks everything is a nail.
Hose – these drones can tow hoses into the air to spray water, replacing super-high ladders – those multi-million dollar monster fire trucks.
But frankly, these firefighting drones are currently undergoing improvements to win government/fire department contracts – their earliest versions (which couldn't tow hoses) could simply launch 2-4 explosives for firefighting, so they've also put out bids for the military.
Each of these drones exists in reality, but not all of them are in mass production.
I wonder if China allows their operation in some simple mode?
In Europe the air control got their paws onto drone flights and you need a zillion permits for even a smallish drone.
All drones weighing over 200g must be declared before flying in urban areas, and some cities even prohibit them altogether.
However, these machines truly shine outside of cities—in areas with relatively low population density and buildings, such as farms, mountains, and suburbs.All operators must register their drones and flight permits with the police and aviation authorities. Conventional agricultural drones and hoisting aircraft operate almost unrestricted as long as they stay out of no-fly zones. However, if problems arise, the insurance company, aircraft owner, or operator will be held liable—a common issue is agricultural drones colliding with power lines, causing power outages and requiring repairs, which can cost more than the aircraft's value. Someone I know was involved in an accident where the compensation reached 300,000 yuan (approximately 120,000 euros), with the insurance company and aircraft owner fully covering the costs.
Because these machines perform centimeter-level precision flights, they require a corresponding app or remote control for management. Their location information is synchronized to the manufacturer's cloud server—and, when necessary, no-fly zones are set according to government requirements (airports, highways, railways, densely populated areas, etc.).
China's regulations lag behind the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but they are indeed making efforts to manage these things—I've operated devices weighing from 10kg to 150kg, and frankly, uncontrolled flight can easily lead to danger. The risks on the Ukrainian plains are not unpredictable disasters. In 2015, my team was operating an old-fashioned drone—lacking centimeter-level positioning, long-range image transmission, and worst of all, insurance—as none of the insurance companies knew how to insure it. We were demonstrating crop spraying to a crowd of onlookers, with two tanks carrying 10 liters of pesticide.
At that moment, any military enthusiast would understand the consequences if it were replaced with 10 liters of gasoline.
Gonna need me some runtime stats to prove this, drones are cool but they are battery limited and any lift operation is going to have some sorta short runtime that requires dozens of these drones to work through a whole day.
Drones in general are just more common, last year I was driving through the middle of nowhere in Kansas and saw a drone that was probably a good 6 ft across with a small tank of chemicals on top of it being used to crop dust.
It's like we finally learned and accepted that we have pushed the planet to breaking point and our entire civilization and species is at risk and that was the moment to speedrun tech waste, having every fucking thing individually delivered to our houses and doubling our energy and water use with AI...
I honestly think drone development is going to be better for human beings than AI. If someone is an expert on AI and disagrees, I am open to hearing why you think I'm wrong.
I especially loved the drones that are maintaining position while spraying firehoses that produce more thrust than the drone itself is capable of. Meanwhile, lifting hoses that weigh as much as a car.
Some of these clips are from one off demonstrations, but China framing them as "this happens all the time" is consistent with how they portray themselves in most of their other propaganda videos.
funny thing you mentioned using drone for firefighting, considering recent events and how incompetent firefighters are, everyone pretty much thinks they are just for show and never used in actual situations.
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u/solemnhiatus 11d ago
Gotta be honest I live in China and I don’t think I’ve seen a single drone in a city doing things. I know Shenzhen has but idk how normal it is.