Integrating vehicles, roads, and cloud: Tapping into a trillion-dollar market
"Attention! A pedestrian is crossing in the blind spot on the right!" a prompt voice came from inside the car. It turned out that the sensors on both sides of the road detected the danger signals in the blind spots of human vision. The real - time information was transmitted to the car via the 5G network, and an accident was averted in advance.
The vehicles and the roads are connected. Especially in adverse weather conditions or when the line of sight is blocked, vehicles can obtain road information beyond the driver's line of sight through collaborative perception technology, significantly improving driving efficiency and safety.
In multi - storey parking lots, the parking lot map and real - time dynamic parking space information are directly transmitted to the car. Drivers no longer need to drive around in circles to find a parking space. This not only reduces congestion and makes parking smoother but also creates room for parking lots to improve resource utilization and increase profits.
The two major scenarios of moving and stationary vehicles demonstrate the value of vehicle - road - cloud integration for urban transportation. As a representative of intelligent transportation, vehicle - road - cloud integration adds road perception infrastructure on the basis of single - vehicle intelligence. The data from the vehicle end and the road end are coordinated through cloud communication. "Smart" cars drive on "intelligent" roads, which essentially means the integration of the information world and the physical world.
This is not a fantasy but a reality that is already happening. Since 2024, 20 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have carried out pilot applications of vehicle - road - cloud integration under the deployment of five ministries. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transport has promoted the digital transformation of water - land linked expressways. Many urban roads and expressways across the country have been renovated, and vehicle - road - cloud integration has taken root. The investment in multiple projects has reached tens of billions of yuan.
Research by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China shows that the incremental output value of the vehicle - road - cloud integrated intelligent connected vehicle industry is expected to reach 729.5 billion yuan in 2025 and 2.5825 trillion yuan in 2030, showing strong momentum.
Currently, what restricts the large - scale implementation of vehicle - road - cloud integration is, of course, the cost, or rather the return on investment. As new infrastructure, road upgrades are mostly funded by local governments. The average investment per kilometer is as high as hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan. However, issues such as how to recover the cost, who owns the generated data, and how to monetize the data are still unclear. A sustainable business model is still being explored.
Li Keqiang, a professor at the School of Vehicle and Mobility of Tsinghua University and the director of the National Key Laboratory of Intelligent and Green Vehicle Transportation, said at the recently held "2025 Vehicle - Road - Cloud 50 - Person Annual Forum" that as a new type of infrastructure, vehicle - road - cloud integration requires standardized design, systematic construction, long - term operation and maintenance, and cross - regional interconnection. The investment has a low tolerance for errors. Currently, the construction is still in the experimental stage, and the government and enterprises need to invest more resources in areas such as regulations, technology, and organization to accelerate large - scale industrial implementation.
01
What Are the Achievements of the Hundred - Billion - Level New Infrastructure?
The policy wind for vehicle - road - cloud integration is blowing strongly.
According to an incomplete review by reporters from Caixin, in April 2024, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Finance issued the "Notice on Supporting and Guiding the Digital Transformation and Upgrading of Highway and Waterway Transportation Infrastructure", aiming to promote the digital transformation of about 85% of busy national expressways and about 25% of busy ordinary national highways in about three years. In September 2024, several departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued a document, requiring "coordinating the construction of vehicle - networking roadside facilities along expressways and urban arterial roads" and "unified construction of urban - level Internet of Things perception terminal management and data analysis platforms".
According to the "Notice on Carrying out Pilot Applications of 'Vehicle - Road - Cloud Integration' for Intelligent Connected Vehicles" in 2024, the first batch of 20 cities became pilot cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, Chongqing, Nanjing, Suzhou, Chengdu, and the Hangzhou - Tongxiang - Deqing consortium. The goal is to build a number of urban - level pilot application projects with the same architecture, unified standards, interoperable services, and high - security.
Hundred - billion - level demonstration projects have been launched in many places. Beijing has announced a new infrastructure project plan for vehicle - road - cloud integration worth nearly 10 billion yuan. Wuhan's major demonstration project for vehicle - road - cloud integration worth 17 billion yuan has been approved and filed by relevant departments. Tendering for relevant projects has been launched in many cities such as Fuzhou, Ordos, Shenyang, and Hangzhou, accelerating the implementation of vehicle - road - cloud integration.
Taking Beijing as an example, with the Economic Development Zone as the core, intelligent facilities have been deployed over an area of 600 square kilometers. More than 800 autonomous driving vehicles from over 30 automobile companies are in operation. Citizens can use apps to "hail a ride" regularly. At the same time, the overall traffic volume has increased, and traffic efficiency has improved. In the future, the scope is expected to be expanded to twelve districts in Beijing, creating an autonomous driving "Beijing Ring" covering over 2000 square kilometers.
Guo Shougang, the deputy director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in September 2025 that 17 national - level test demonstration areas have been built across the country, and the construction of 20 pilot cities for "vehicle - road - cloud integration" is being accelerated. A total of more than 35,000 kilometers of test demonstration roads have been opened, and more than 10,000 test demonstration licenses have been issued.
What kind of experience has been gained after one year of the pilot? As a leading expert in the field of vehicle - road - cloud integration, Li Keqiang summarized that vehicle - road - cloud integration is a fundamental change in the overall and coordinated nature of the transportation system. The vehicle - road - cloud integration technology route pioneered by China has completed the research and development of ten functional scenarios.
A typical scenario is on ramps. Due to the large speed differences and limited visibility when vehicles merge on ramps, scraping accidents occur frequently. This is also a high - frequency accident scenario for current autonomous driving. The vehicle - road - cloud platform can push the status of surrounding vehicles and plan the optimal merging trajectory, enabling coordinated vehicle merging and diverging.
Li Keqiang said that the ten scenarios have become the core support for eight application systems, including smart buses, unmanned delivery, smart passenger cars for travel, urban logistics, highway logistics, smart sanitation, intelligent charging and discharging, and data closed - loop and value - added services, promoting the transformation of intelligent transportation from the "test field" to the "real - life field" and realizing the conversion from technology to commercial value.
For example, in the case of smart buses, by integrating the two technologies of traffic signal priority and platoon driving, the on - time rate of buses has been improved, and energy consumption has decreased. Currently, the daily passenger volume of the pilot routes in Beijing and Guangzhou has increased compared with traditional buses.
Another example is for private vehicles. By integrating traffic control and parking guidance technologies, new - energy vehicles are guided to idle charging piles, realizing "automatic charging - pile search - contactless charging - reservation for departure" and improving charging efficiency.
02
High Investment, Where Is the Return?
The investment in vehicle - road - cloud integration is huge. Taking the Beijing Economic Development Zone as an example, as China's first high - level autonomous driving demonstration area, after more than four years of construction, the vehicle - road - cloud integration infrastructure has only covered an area of 600 square kilometers.
The investment is so high because all vehicles, roads, and communication networks in the demonstration area need to be upgraded in terms of software and hardware. At the same time, a unified command system and management platform need to be established. According to the technical requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it involves full - coverage of 5G communication networks in the area, installation of roadside equipment, installation of in - vehicle terminals, and construction of a unified platform. It is a systematic project from the underlying framework to single - point applications.
According to the tender announcements from various places reviewed by reporters from Caixin, the tenderers are mostly local urban investment platforms, and the construction funds mainly come from fiscal funds. The average budget per kilometer is often as high as one million yuan. For example, in the "Tender Announcement for the Cangshan Avenue Tunnel Project of the Vehicle - Road - Cloud Integrated Intelligent Connected Demonstration Application Project" issued by Tiantai County, Zhejiang Province in August 2025, the estimated investment is 185 million yuan for the construction of a 960 - meter urban arterial road with two lanes.
The investment is large, but where is the return? The unclear business model has led to a general lack of willingness among non - government entities to participate, limiting the process of promoting vehicle - road - cloud integration from the 20 - city pilot to the whole country.
In vehicle - road - cloud integration, "vehicle" comes first, but the participation of automobile enterprises in the construction is relatively low. Reporters from Caixin learned through interviews that the single - vehicle data of some automobile enterprises are not even connected to the unified platform of the demonstration area.
In the view of many automobile enterprises, although the value of vehicle - road - cloud integration is recognized, since the infrastructure is still in its early stage and cannot cover all roads completely, if the information is fragmented, users will be reluctant to accept it. Intelligent transportation still depends on the improvement of the vehicle's own intelligence level. Moreover, the construction cost of vehicle - road - cloud integration is extremely high, and automobile enterprises face great financial pressure, so they have little motivation to participate.
The overly fragmented organizational structure and the lack of unified industry standards also make it difficult for automobile enterprises to integrate well into the construction of vehicle - road - cloud integration. "There are too many construction parties and operators now. In most cities, each district may have a general contractor, and there is no unified party for scenario data docking. It is very difficult for automobile enterprises to connect to road section data because there are too many subcontractors," said Xia Qin, the deputy general manager of China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Intelligent Connected Technology Co., Ltd.
This industry situation certainly needs to be solved by a unified national - level plan. Vehicle - road - cloud integration can not only help deal with "big - city diseases" such as parking difficulties and traffic congestion but also provide support for intelligent transportation, intelligent parking, and urban management by aggregating various types of urban data, including those from intelligent connected vehicles, intelligent roads, and urban buildings.
In December 2024, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Construction of New - Type Urban Infrastructure to Build Resilient Cities", listing "promoting the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and intelligent connected vehicles" as one of the nine key tasks for "building resilient cities through the construction of new - type urban infrastructure". According to the plan, by 2030, significant achievements will be made in the construction of new - type urban infrastructure.
There are many participants in the vehicle - road - cloud integration industrial chain, involving the upgrading and integration of the automobile, transportation, and communication industries. It is generally divided into five major parts: vehicles and other traffic participants, roadside infrastructure, cloud control platforms, relevant support platforms, and communication networks. Coordinating the construction of a fusion perception system for urban roads, buildings, and public facilities is considered an important means to achieve intelligent transportation and even smart cities.
Zhang Yongwei, the vice - chairman and secretary - general of the China EV 100, pointed out that vehicle - road - cloud is not just about vehicle intelligence but a new - type infrastructure system that can be connected to different fields such as the automobile, transportation, and urban sectors, forming development solutions for intelligent connected vehicles, intelligent transportation, and smart cities. Under this attribute, vehicles do not need to bear the burden of infrastructure investment prematurely.
03
Multiple Possibilities for Commercial Monetization
Research by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China shows that the incremental output value of the vehicle - road - cloud integrated intelligent connected vehicle industry is expected to reach 729.5 billion yuan in 2025 and 2.5825 trillion yuan in 2030, showing strong growth momentum. According to a report from the CCID Forward - looking Industry Research Institute, the market scale of intelligent connected vehicles in China is expected to exceed 5 trillion yuan in 2030, and the market scale related to vehicle - road - cloud integration will exceed 14 trillion yuan.
Vehicle - road - cloud integration is a technical, industrial, and economic concept. It will take time for this trillion - level market to be fully realized from the 20 - city pilot to the national promotion.
Lightweight and wide - coverage is an investment method considered feasible by Wang Lu, the deputy general manager of the Intelligent Connected Vehicle Innovation Center in the Western Science City of Chongqing. "The current road investment is heavy. Many lidars, cameras, millimeter - wave radars, etc. need to be added, and new communication equipment needs to be built. Although this can obtain high - precision data, the investment is too large, and it is difficult to implement on a large scale. It is recommended to adopt a lightweight layout, access core data such as traffic lights and tidal lanes, install sensors at complex intersections, and reuse the computing power already built in smart cities as much as possible to quickly cover the whole city."
Wang Lu told reporters from Caixin that after the construction of vehicle - road - cloud integration in the whole city is completed, key commercial scenarios will be available, and cooperation can be carried out with map companies, autonomous driving companies, automobile manufacturers, etc. to create commercial value. The experience can be replicated from one city to another without considering the differences in the financial strength of different regions.
More importantly, data may become the core of the industry. Vehicle - road - cloud integration generates a large amount of data every day, even every hour and every minute, including data on the operating status of autonomous driving vehicles, in - vehicle videos, roadside videos and point clouds, roadside perception result data, traffic flow indicators, and other data resources. The operation platform can cooperate with relevant institutions to monetize the data together.
Wang Lu believes that there are at least three possibilities for data monetization: First, clean and process the collected roadside data in a compliant manner and sell it to autonomous driving companies through market - based pricing; second, since vehicle - road - cloud integration will inevitably require more computing power and more traffic, cooperate with the three major operators to share the overall traffic revenue; third, directly charge for road rights. For example, Wuhan has charged annual license fees from autonomous driving companies.
According to a report in Yicheng Times in June this year, the operation platform Beijing Vehicle Network Company in the Beijing Economic Development Zone has gathered the supervision data of more than 1,000 autonomous driving vehicles, holographic perception data from more than 1,600 intersections, high - precision map data with full - area coverage, and data from third - party platforms related to smart cities and intelligent transportation. The company is recruiting partners, including relevant government management departments, automobile enterprises and other data demanders, data annotation enterprises, computing power platforms and other data service providers, as well as data providers, to promote the release of the value of industrial data in a compliant manner.
"Vehicle - road - cloud integration should not be regarded as just a fiscal investment. Just like the construction model of expressways, vehicle - road - cloud integration can completely create a revenue mechanism with the participation of multiple parties." Taking Wuxi, Jiangsu as an example, Wang Lu said that China Mobile has participated in the investment in the vehicle - road - cloud integration road infrastructure in the whole city. In the future, vehicles that use these software and hardware facilities must pay for the traffic, just like mobile phones pay for call charges. The three major operators have seen the infinite potential of the vehicle market.
For communication operators, the number of mobile phone users is becoming increasingly saturated, and the future breakthrough lies in the Internet of Vehicles. As more and more new - energy intelligent connected vehicles run on the roads, even a charge of 10 yuan per vehicle will result in huge revenues.
Zhang Yongwei believes that commercialization can be divided into three levels: The intelligent upgrading of traditional infrastructure should be mainly invested by the government; the second category is to entrust the basic network to communication operators; the third category is to conduct social financing for roadside computing power and intelligent equipment. In terms of specific model design, he believes that the construction model of expressways, that is, the method of "the main body borrows money and the operation repays the debt", can be used to establish a financing mechanism.
It is undeniable that currently, local governments are generally facing financial constraints and are cautious about large - scale infrastructure investment. The business models of multiple participants are just starting to be explored, and no feasible cases have been formed. However, in Wang Lu's view, cautious investment is not a bad thing. Thinking carefully about the input - output logic before taking action can avoid resource idling after hasty large - scale construction. Sometimes, being slow is actually being fast.