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China's exports of drones to emerging economies have surged this year, reflecting increased demand for farming, surveying and other civilian applications.
Chinese drone exports during the first half of the year rose 26% to 2.42 million units, according to China's General Administration of Customs. During the same period, exports to the US dropped more than 40%.
<a title="" href="https://asia.nikkei.com/politics/international-relations/us-china-tensions/china-hits-back-at-us-fcc-bans-with-sanctions-and-drone-curbs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Export curbs imposed on the US</a> on August 5 by Beijing are expected to accelerate the decline. But shipments to emerging markets are more than making up for the shortfall.
"Demand from overseas is enormous," said a representative from a Suzhou-based manufacturer at a trade show in Shanghai last month. The company exports surveying drones to Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
China is pushing a "low-altitude economy," a term referring to economic activities involving manned and unmanned aircraft in low-altitude airspace. Led by leading drone maker <a href="/company/dji">DJI</a>, companies are building up production facilities for finished products and key components inside China's borders.
The plan is to expand influence by exporting primarily to countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping's cross-border infrastructure and economic development strategy.
In March, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce announced a multifront plan for drone exports. Companies will exports finished drones to Southeast Asia, where logistics networks will be set up. Drones for inspecting pipelines will be exported to the Middle East and African countries will receive drones for agriculture and cargo transport.
Demand for drones continues to expand for infrastructure inspection, logistics, agriculture and other applications. An executive at a manufacturer in Jiangsu that exports to Southeast Asia and other regions said the company will increase the ratio of overseas sales "from 10–15% to 50% within three years."
Exports to the Philippines increased by 68% in the first half, according to the customs administration. Exports to Germany and Malaysia more than doubled, while those to Pakistan surged 13-fold. Cambodian exports soared 163-fold.
Cambodia's Ministry of Interior has signed an agreement with China's Nanning Vocational and Technical University to collaborate on drones and other advanced technologies. The university will provide guidance on using drones for maintaining public order and disaster response.
The Philippines has been offering subsidies to support drone use in rice cultivation since 2024. Many of the drones used are made in China.
According to DJI, more than 700,000 of the company's agricultural drones were in use worldwide as of the end of June. This represents a doubling in the past three years. The drones have become an indispensable agricultural machine, according to DJI.
In December, the US restricted the sale of new drones manufactured overseas, citing national security concerns. Exports of Chinese-made drones to the US fell 46% on the year in the six months that followed.
But demand for Chinese-made drones remains strong, particularly in emerging markets. Chinese drones are said to offer superior usability despite being a fraction of the cost of US-made drones.
This article first appeared on <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/business/china-tech/chinese-drone-exports-take-off-in-southeast-asia-other-emerging-markets">Nikkei Asia</a>. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with <a href="https://www.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/nikkei-teams-up-with-36kr-in-asia-tech-news-coverage/">Nikkei</a>.

Chinese drone exports take off in Southeast Asia, other emerging markets

East Asia

China

Deep Tech

Drones

Cambodia

Philippines

Southeast Asia

… alt="Photo shows the interior of a right-hand-drive WeRide robotaxi." width="1920" height="1080" srcset="https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/WeRide-Robotaxi-Right-Hand-Drive.jpg 1920w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/WeRide-Robotaxi-Right-Hand-Drive-720x405.jpg 720w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/WeRide-Robotaxi-Right-Hand-Drive-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/WeRide-Robotaxi-Right-Hand-Drive-768x432.jpg 768w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/WeRide-Robotaxi-Right-Hand-Drive-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/WeRide-Robotaxi-Right-Hand-Drive-480x270.jpg 480w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-163579" class="wp-caption-text">Inside a right-hand-drive WeRide robotaxi. Photo courtesy of WeRide.</figcaption></figure>
This <a href="https://xueqiu.com/2854806290/404777623">article</a> was adapted based on a feature originally written by Stone Jin and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.76 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 14, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

WeRide’s two growth drivers accelerate as global robotaxi expansion gathers pace

WeRide

Transportation

Autonomous Vehicles

Mobility

Hong Kong

Autonomous Driving

On August 12, marking ten years in the 360 camera business, <a href="/company/insta360">Insta360</a> launched the X6, its latest flagship 360 camera. The device starts at RMB 3,999 (USD 591.8) in mainland China.
The X6 builds on a decade of development in 360 imaging. While previous generations focused largely on image quality, portability, and the shooting experience, the X6 points to a broader shift: Insta360 is handing more of the framing, subject tracking, and editing process to the camera and <a href="/industry/ai">artificial intelligence</a>.
The X6 supports up to 8K 360 video at 50 frames per second. It uses two custom 1/1.1-inch square image sensors co-developed by Insta360 and Sony. According to Insta360, the sensors offer 33% more area than those in the X5 and about four times as much light intake per frame, primarily improving performance in challenging conditions such as low-light and backlit scenes.
More significant, however, is the change in how users can shoot.
One of the defining features of 360 cameras is that users do not need to decide where to point the lens while recording. Instead, they can reframe footage afterward. The tradeoff is that this requires more post-production work.
The X6’s new InstaFrame 2.0 mode can output 4K flat video directly. Its automatic subject tracking supports pets and objects in addition to people. When paired with the “POV Head Tracker” accessory, the camera can also adjust its framing based on where the user is looking.
Beyond hardware upgrades, the X6 also gives AI a larger role in post-production. The aim is to reduce the amount of work users need to do after recording, moving 360 imaging beyond simple capture toward more automated content creation and spatial reconstruction.
The X6 features Insta360’s in-house PanoMind 360 AI model. “AI Director,” the auto-editing engine within PanoMind, can analyze footage on the camera and automatically assemble highlight videos. Another feature, “Moments Pro,” lets users specify a subject, mood, style, and timeframe, after which a cloud-based tool generates a video.
The X6 also adds 3D spatial reconstruction, allowing users to turn captured footage into navigable 3D scenes. This lets users revisit recorded moments from different angles rather than viewing them only as conventional video.
Beyond the product itself, Insta360’s business has continued to expand. Its annual report showed that revenue rose 74.76% year-on-year in 2025, followed by an 83.11% year-on-year increase in the first quarter of 2026.
Over the past two years, Insta360 has also expanded beyond its core 360 camera portfolio. In addition to its X series, Go series, and action cameras, it has invested in projects including 360 drones, gimbal cameras, wireless microphones, and custom chips.
In 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, the company invested RMB 762 million (USD 112.8 million) and RMB 262 million (USD 38.8 million), respectively, in these projects.
Its drone and gimbal efforts are about more than adding new product categories. Insta360 is using different camera products to build expertise in optics, sensors, and imaging algorithms. Drones and gimbals also give its devices greater ability to move through physical space, while automatic editing and AI-based scene understanding add another software layer.
In that context, the X6 remains one of Insta360’s key products for testing new technologies.
Across recent generations, the company has steadily increased camera resolution. With the X6, it has added automatic subject tracking, AI editing, and spatial reconstruction. Competition in 360 cameras is therefore shifting beyond image quality toward another question: how much of the shooting and post-production process can the camera handle for the user?
For Insta360, which already holds a substantial share of the market, improving image quality remains important. But lowering the barrier to content creation, while extending its capabilities in 360 imaging, AI, and spatial perception across more hardware formats, is also becoming a greater priority.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This <a href="https://36kr.com/p/3936487630650758">article</a> was written by Leslie Zhang for 36Kr.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.76 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 14, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

Insta360 launches X6 as 360 cameras hand more creative work to AI

Insta360

Short Video

Live Streaming

Video

Creative

Consumer Economy

… spending adds another source of demand.
Tencent also places considerable emphasis on investment returns. Its willingness to increase spending despite tight supply and elevated memory prices suggests that memory is becoming an increasingly important requirement for AI infrastructure.
At the same time, memory capacity takes time to expand. Continued demand growth could therefore keep the supply-demand balance tight and support industry pricing.
The recent correction in shares of leading memory companies may instead reflect factors such as profit-taking, sector rotation, and expectations surrounding Federal Reserve policy, rather than a clear deterioration in industry fundamentals.
In that sense, Tencent’s increased AI spending could help extend the current memory upcycle.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This <a href="https://36kr.com/p/3937749806464389">article</a> was written by Huang Yida for 36Kr.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.76 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 14, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

Can Tencent give the memory boom a new lease on life?

… Zhang Yangguang, Yang Zhiyu, and Wu Jinze, each subscribed for RMB 9 million (USD 1.3 million). Their shares are locked up for three years.
Others remained on the sidelines.
Employees who chose not to buy options described different concerns. Some believed the purchase threshold was too high and objected to receiving no discount. Others worried that the lockup period was too long and feared the industry could enter a downturn one or three years later.
In the year and a half since Unitree broke into the mainstream, its valuation has risen nearly fivefold, from RMB 12 billion to more than RMB 60 billion (USD 8.9 billion), and the company has moved rapidly toward an IPO.
Yet in a recent interview with Time magazine, Wang said the company’s popularity had placed enormous pressure on both Unitree and the wider industry.
“Everyone expects Unitree’s technology to advance extremely quickly, but hard-core technology cannot make leaps overnight,” Wang said.
He estimated that overcoming the difficult technological inflection point of generalization would take at least two to ten more years.
Amid the excitement surrounding the company, that more cautious assessment could easily receive less attention.
At some point, however, China’s embodied intelligence sector will have to show whether it can meet the expectations now built around it.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This <a href="https://36kr.com/p/3933488511270017">article</a> was written by Qiu Xiaofen and Yuan Silai for 36Kr.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.76 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 13, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

How Unitree became China’s most closely watched robotics IPO

Unitree Robotics

Robotics

Embodied Intelligence

Chinese action camera brand <a href="/company/insta360">Insta360</a> faces mounting pressure from surging chip costs driven by the <a href="/industry/ai">artificial intelligence</a> boom, which it said is proving more challenging than US tariffs as it expands in the American market.
Demand from AI companies has squeezed the supply of components Insta360 relies on and created a "critical" situation last year, co-founder Max Richter said in an interview with Nikkei Asia.
The cost increase will be difficult to predict because it depends on how long the AI investment cycle lasts, Richter said.
"It probably has a much bigger effect than the tariffs at this moment," he said, adding that the price of chips is presently under control.
"At this moment we very much have set up a better risk management that we can diversify our suppliers," he said.
The company works with such chip companies as Qualcomm and Ambarella, Richter said, but hopes to secure longer-term partnerships to manage supply risks, potentially by developing customized chipsets specifically for its cameras.
Industry executives have warned that the shortage of memory chips <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/memory-chip-crunch-to-hit-tvs-and-consumer-devices-hardest-in-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener">could extend into 2027</a>, hitting consumer electronics. Spot prices for mainstream DRAM chips were up 700% on the year this past June, according to data from market research firm TrendForce.
Founded in 2015, Insta360 has become a world leader in 360-degree cameras. Its sales soared 74% on the year to RMB 9.74 billion (USD 1.4 billion) in 2025. Sales growth and premium prices have given Insta360 room to absorb higher components costs, but Richter acknowledged that the increases are eating into margins. He declined to share by how much but said there were no plans to raise prices.
US tariffs on goods from China, where the company manufactures most of its products, shot up to 145% at their highest last year. Even with the current effective US tariff rate on Chinese imports averaging around 23% according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model as of mid-July, Richter said North America remains the camera maker's top priority.
Listed on Shanghai's Star Market as Arashi Vision, the company relies heavily on international sales. Markets outside China account for 70% of sales, according to Richter.
The company will open a flagship store in New York City's Times Square and branded stores in Tokyo and Munich before the end of the year. The goal is to have a wider customer reach as the company grows, Richter said.
In the US, Insta360 products are currently only available through authorized retailers and its online store. Its retail stores, mostly in Asia, have rapidly grown from five at the start of 2023 to 300.
Once known primarily for cameras aimed at outdoor enthusiasts and extreme-sports users, Insta360 has expanded into gimbals and other products aimed at travelers, families and content creators.
"Our products are not just being used as a niche product, but really entering mainstream use cases," Richter said.
The company is also considering expanding its research and development centers to locations outside China, including the US It is currently trialing a team in Tokyo, Richter said.
With its growing portfolio, the company has been battling several lawsuits by rivals over patent claims. The International Trade Commission in February cleared Insta360 of infringing on GoPro utility patents but found that earlier versions of its products had violated a GoPro camera design patent. Insta360 is currently engaged in litigation with Chinese drone maker <a href="/company/dji">DJI</a>, which alleges patent infringement on gimbals and cameras.
This article first appeared on <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/business/china-tech/ai-becomes-bigger-headache-than-tariffs-for-china-camera-maker-insta360">Nikkei Asia</a>. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with <a href="https://www.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/nikkei-teams-up-with-36kr-in-asia-tech-news-coverage/">Nikkei</a>.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.76 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 12, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

AI becomes bigger headache than tariffs for China camera maker Insta360

Retail

Creator Economy

Filmmaker Stephen Chow's latest comedy has become China's biggest box office hit so far this summer, helping revive a sluggish theatrical market even as critics and moviegoers remain sharply divided over whether the Hong Kong actor and director has recaptured the magic of his earlier classics like Shaolin Soccer.
Kung Fu Soccer opened on July 11 in China and topped the mainland box office for two weeks, accounting for about 41% of the more than RMB 5 billion (USD 739.8 million) in ticket sales in July, according to data from China's Maoyan Entertainment.
Released during the 2026 FIFA World Cup that ran from June 11 to July 19, the sports comedy has earned more than RMB 2 billion (USD 295.9 million), surpassing the Chinese film <a title="" href="https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/society/chinese-film-stirs-identity-debate-in-singapore-amid-shifting-us-ties" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dear You,</a> a nostalgic family drama exploring the history of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia that was released earlier this year.
Chow's film follows an underdog women's soccer team that uses martial arts to compete in a championship. It reimagines Chow's 2001 film Shaolin Soccer by flipping the gender of the protagonists while retaining a similar storyline.
Starring Chinese actress and comedian Zhang Xiaofei, South Korean-Chinese boy band Exo member Lay Zhang, ethnic Uyghur actress Dilraba Dilmurat and Thai actress Chanya McClory, the film also includes special appearances by Hong Kong American comedian Jimmy O Yang, Japanese actor Takeru Satoh, and Japanese dance troupe Avantgardey.
This is "a clear attempt to widen the film's pan-Asian and international appeal," said Kenny Ng, a film professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.
The box office success comes at a difficult time for China's film industry, which has struggled with weak consumer spending and the <a title="" href="https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/big-in-asia/in-china-s-microdrama-boom-ai-moviemakers-chase-2-minutes-of-fame" target="_blank" rel="noopener">growing popularity</a> of online microdramas.
The mainland's box office plunged 40% in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year. After soaring in 2023 to RMB 20.6 billion (USD 3 billion) in summer ticket sales, typically measured from June 1 through August 31, the 2025 figure was just RMB 12 billion (USD 1.8 billion).
For many moviegoers, Chow remains one of the most influential figures in Chinese-language cinema.
He became a household name in China through starring in absurdist Hong Kong comedies in the 1990s, when pirated copies circulated widely on the mainland. Later, as a director, he delivered a string of box office successes, including Kung Fu Hustle and The Mermaid.
"Mainland audiences often interpret his films as celebrating ordinary people while sticking a finger at authority and convention, which explains his unusually strong appeal," Ying Zhu, an author of the book "Hollywood in China," told Nikkei Asia.
"Nostalgia also plays a role," Zhu added, noting that many Chinese moviegoers who grew up watching Chow's films in the 1990s and 2000s remain loyal fans.
That nostalgia appears to have helped fuel the strong opening for Kung Fu Soccer, even as audiences remain divided over whether the veteran filmmaker has successfully reinvented one of his best-known works.
Yet strong ticket sales have not translated into universal praise.
On Douban, one of China's most popular film review platforms, Kung Fu Soccer has a rating of 6.4 out of 10, well below the 8.2 earned by Shaolin Soccer.
Some viewers have also criticized the film's computer-generated imagery as being of low quality and the plot of lacking creativity.
"Not only is the acting cringe, but the dialogue is cringe, the special effects are cringe, and the plot is cringe," a user wrote on Douban. "To be honest, Stephen Chow is definitely someone worthy of admiration, but it's also a fact that his standards have declined."
Others, however, embraced the film's nostalgic brand of absurd humor.
"I think Kung Fu Soccer is really good because you can never imagine Stephen Chow's next movie," one Weibo user wrote. "It gets your blood pumping with its nonsensical humor and unique style."
The split reaction reflects the challenges Chow faced for revisiting one of his most beloved works.
"Critics found the film derivative of his old stuff and uneven," Hong Kong Baptist University's Ng said. "At the same time, it opened strongly at the mainland box office, showing a divergence between critical reception and popular commercial performance."
The film has also stirred controversy outside China.
In South Korea, where the film has not been released, some people have objected to its portrayal of the country's national women's soccer team, known as Taegeuk Ladies, as the movie's villains.
Days after the movie's release in China, Seo Kyoung-duk, a professor at Sungshin Women's University, criticized the portrayal in a Facebook post, saying the South Korean team was shown "engaging in foul play through all kinds of cowardly tactics."
"No matter how fictional a movie may be, it is wrong to repeatedly insult Korean sports," Seo added.
Along with the backlash, Kung Fu Soccer faces an even greater test at the mainland box office as competition intensifies. Hollywood blockbuster Spider-Man: Brand New Day topped the box office the weekend before last, while China’s animated comedy All Wishes Come True! had dethroned Kung Fu Soccer the weekend before that.
Kung Fu Soccer began its international rollout on August 6 with Singapore and Cambodia, and opens in Indonesia on August 12, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and Brunei on August 13, and Thailand on August 20, offering Chow another chance to test whether the nostalgia that has sustained his popularity in China can resonate with audiences across Asia.
This article first appeared on <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/business/media-entertainment/chinese-nostalgia-makes-kung-fu-soccer-a-hit-but-will-it-score-overseas">Nikkei Asia</a>. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with <a href="https://www.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/nikkei-teams-up-with-36kr-in-asia-tech-news-coverage/">Nikkei</a>.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.76 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 12, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.

Chinese nostalgia makes Kung Fu Soccer a hit, but will it score overseas?

… data budgets at leading Silicon Valley model companies are expanding by billions of US dollars a year. Anthropic, for example, allocated more than USD 1 billion to reinforcement learning data in 2025 alone.
That spending has helped fuel rapid growth among data suppliers in Silicon Valley. One example is Mercor, a startup whose annualized revenue rose from USD 500 million last year to USD 2 billion by the middle of this year. About 91% of its revenue came from leading model companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, while its valuation rose to USD 20 billion. The company was founded only three years ago.
Why has data become so important? One reason is that the pool of readily available, high-quality public internet data has become increasingly constrained.
Over the past three years, the data required for model training has increasingly shifted from the public domain toward private sources. The public internet contains vast amounts of reports and documents, but it captures less of the process through which people produce those results, such as working through ambiguous requests, gathering context, making mistakes, and correcting them.
Beyond coding, for example, general-purpose models still struggle with highly specialized tasks in fields such as medicine, law, and scientific research. As developers seek to improve models on expert-level tasks, they need large amounts of naturally generated “process data.” Such data is often embedded in real-world workflows, including internal code repositories and records generated by employees during their day-to-day work.
As a result, access to proprietary data is becoming an increasingly important competitive front for foundation model companies.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This <a href="https://36kr.com/p/3934936980667776">article</a> was written by Deng Yongyi for 36Kr.

After Seed and Flow, ByteDance builds a new AI unit around data

Artificial Intelligence

Foundation and Large Models

… oversized luggage or try to exceed the vehicle's capacity. Visually impaired riders traveling with guide dogs may need help commencing a trip. Pony.ai later introduced accessibility features for visually impaired users, reducing the need for assistance in some of those cases.
Scale brings a different kind of pressure. During China's Labor Day holiday in 2026, Chinese pop group Teens in Times held concerts in Guangzhou's Nansha district. As crowds left late at night, Pony.ai's dispatch system sent robotaxis toward nearby transport hubs. The company said the vehicles completed about 3,000 passenger trips over four nights during peak departure periods.
Many riders were using a robotaxi for the first time. They pressed the customer service button to ask where to put luggage, whether a destination could be changed, or simply what to expect from a car with no driver.
A vehicle may be able to plan a route, but it cannot always explain a detour, calm a nervous passenger, or understand the emotion behind a complaint. The closer the driving system gets to handling ordinary road situations by itself, the more the remaining work can center on exceptions and human reassurance.
<figure id="attachment_163492" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-163492" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-163492" src="https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Pony.ai-Robotaxi-Passenger.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" srcset="https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Pony.ai-Robotaxi-Passenger.jpg 1920w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Pony.ai-Robotaxi-Passenger-720x405.jpg 720w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Pony.ai-Robotaxi-Passenger-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Pony.ai-Robotaxi-Passenger-768x432.jpg 768w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Pony.ai-Robotaxi-Passenger-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://console.rwegrgdf5.eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Pony.ai-Robotaxi-Passenger-480x270.jpg 480w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-163492" class="wp-caption-text">Photo courtesy of Pony.ai.</figcaption></figure>
<h3>A labor market still taking shape</h3>
Remote assistance remains a small occupation, but the market forming around it could be substantial. <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/robotaxis-to-become-a-400-billion-dollar-market-in-2035">Goldman Sachs Research</a> expects the global commercial robotaxi fleet to expand from about 7,000 vehicles in 2025 to one million in 2030 and roughly six million in 2035, when it forecasts the market will be worth about USD 415 billion. In a separate forecast published in April this year, Goldman analysts projected China’s robotaxi fleet would reach 3.1 million vehicles by 2035.
The expansion should support jobs across the autonomous vehicle supply chain, from engineering and data annotation to testing, fleet operations, and maintenance. Remote assistance will form part of that ecosystem, but staffing is unlikely to increase in lockstep with the number of vehicles.
As the technology improves, each remote assistance agent should be able to support a larger fleet. Goldman estimates that the ratio of vehicles to human remote operations staff could rise from six to one currently to 26 to one by 2035, sharply reducing labor costs per mile. The result is a paradox: the industry is creating new roles even as it works to reduce how often each vehicle needs them.
That tension is closer to what economist Joseph Schumpeter meant by creative destruction than the simplified claim that technology merely replaces one job with another. In “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy,” he described a process of "industrial mutation" that "incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one." The destruction and creation do not necessarily happen at the same speed, in the same place, or for the same workers.
The automobile created repair shops, filling stations, road construction, and modern logistics even as it displaced older forms of transport. Robotaxis may produce a similar reordering, but it is too early to know whether the new jobs will offset the driving work that automation could eventually remove.
For the first generation of remote assistance operators, the career path is already becoming clearer. Song still keeps a record of the first time she helped a vehicle out of a difficult situation. Lan remembers the characteristics of every high-risk area. Both have become team leaders, as has Sun. Guo now helps improve other operators' work and trains new hires. Yu has gone from sketching road locations as a trainee to managing a fleet through a hailstorm.
A passenger who unlocks a driverless robotaxi in 2026 may see no one in the front seat. But when the road becomes ambiguous or the ride becomes unsettling, a human voice is still waiting somewhere beyond the screen.
Note: Yu Fei, Sun Jian, Lan Zhi, and Guo Wei are pseudonyms used at the interviewees’ request to preserve their anonymity.

China’s robotaxis are creating a new kind of desk job

Pony.ai

Ecosystem