The Zhangye Low-Altitude Economy Service Center, located at the Zhangye Danxia Cloud Big Data Center, is scheduled to begin operations in late September this year. Equipment commissioning at the venue is currently progressing on schedule, with supporting facilities being fine-tuned ahead of the official launch.
In parallel, the Ganyu Low-Altitude Economic Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary under the control of the Zhangfa Group, is accelerating the construction of an integrated low-altitude air management and service platform for the Zhangye area. This initiative aims to address the challenges of low-altitude flight control under the region's complex terrain, ensuring orderly and safe drone operations across Gobi deserts, snow-capped mountains, and Danxia landforms.
Previously, low-altitude flights operated in isolation, with scenic area inspections, logistics routes, and emergency rescue corridors disconnected from one another, leaving critical data fragmented. A representative from the service center described the new platform as an "air traffic police headquarters" for low-altitude airspace, bringing all aircraft in the region under a unified management network.
The platform, backed by full technical support from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' UAV Center, is built on four core architectures:全域智能组网 (whole-region intelligent networking), a distributed secure computing cloud foundation, an AI-driven smart dispatching system, and a unified municipal low-altitude data hub. By breaking down data silos between military aviation, civil aviation, emergency response, and urban management departments, flight trajectories from various terminals will be integrated into a single dynamic heat map, enabling authorities to "see, respond to, and control" all low-altitude aircraft.
Given the complex climate conditions typical of northwest China—such as strong winds, sandstorms, and large temperature fluctuations—the platform has developed a specialized low-altitude multimodal AI model, dubbed the "Northwest Version of an Autonomous Driving System" by technicians. This model can autonomously plan routes, issue mid-air risk alerts, diagnose aircraft malfunctions, and automatically capture evidence of rule violations. "It's like equipping every drone with a professional guide who knows local weather and terrain intimately," noted the center's technical lead.
Once operational, the platform will focus on five key application scenarios: low-altitude tourism, logistics, emergency rescue, urban governance, and agricultural and forestry inspection. For instance, at the Colorful Danxia Scenic Area, if a tourist suddenly falls ill, emergency medication could be rapidly delivered by drone from a supply point at the mountain's base, significantly cutting response times compared with traditional ground transport and boosting emergency efficiency.
The Zhangye Low-Altitude Economy Service Center will feature dedicated zones for policy display, core technology exhibits, and advanced products, combining functions such as achievement showcases, academic exchange, and hands-on operations. It is poised to become a key window for low-altitude economy exchanges and demonstrations across northwest China.
Low-altitude economy is a strategically emerging national industry, guided by the principle of "cargo before passengers, isolation before integration, and suburbs before urban centers." Zhangye, situated at the core corridor of the Hexi Corridor with exceptional tourism resources, is seizing this trillion-yuan market opportunity. Once the center is fully operational, it will continue to refine the low-altitude economy ecosystem, anchoring on the goals of "flyable, manageable, useful, and industry-prosperous," accelerating the transition of low-altitude economy from blueprint to everyday reality and fostering new momentum for the city's high-quality development.