UISEE Reaches 1.6 Million Kilometers of Driverless Operations at Tianshan Airport, Garnering Wide Media Coverage

2026-08-26

Recently, UISEE, in partnership with Xinjiang

Airport Group, announced that its Level 4 autonomous driving fleet—the largest

of its kind operating without on-board safety operators on airport aprons in

mainland China—has surpassed 1.6 million kilometers in cumulative operations at

Urumqi Tianshan International Airport, setting a new benchmark for large-scale

commercial deployment of autonomous driving in China's civil aviation sector.

UISEE's long-term commitment to smart civil

aviation and its innovative AI Driver business model have garnered in-depth

coverage from leading media outlets.

Xinhua News Agency

Level 4 autonomous driving is moving beyond the

laboratory and achieving large-scale deployment in real-world operational

environments with stringent safety standards, such as civil aviation aprons.

The commercial autonomous driving industry has progressed past the stage of

pure technology validation—safety and reliability, commercial viability, and

scenario replication efficiency have become critical questions for the

industry. UISEE's achievement of 1.6

million kilometers of autonomous operations without on-board safety operators

at Urumqi Tianshan International Airport represents a significant benchmark for

large-scale commercial application of autonomous driving in China's civil

aviation airports.

Xinhua News Agency coverage

Huanqiu.com

Beyond technological barriers, Wu Gansha is driving

a fundamental shift in business logic. UISEE initially pursued a

hardware-centric model—selling vehicles and charging maintenance fees—but he

soon recognized that this path would be difficult to scale. This insight led to

the AI Driver subscription service: UISEE does

not manufacture vehicles or operate fleets. Instead, it deploys FSD-level

full-stack autonomous capabilities as standard aftermarket retrofit kits onto

customers' existing vehicles, eliminating the need for fleet replacement.

Billing is flexible—per AI Driver, per kilometer, or per hour—combined with

financial leasing or subscription-based pricing, removing the

capital-intensive barriers that have traditionally slowed the adoption of

commercial autonomous driving technology.

Huanqiu.com coverage

Science and Technology Daily

Civil aviation demands the highest safety

standards, and UISEE has built a seven-layer progressive safety framework: each

vehicle generates hundreds of states that, through interaction, form tens of

thousands of state transitions. The foundational safety layer ensures that any

anomaly is detected and safely mitigated; above it, at least six positioning

mechanisms provide mutually redundant backup; further up, leveraging the

industry's largest airport-specific database, algorithms evolve from rule-based

systems to large foundation models and world models, with reinforcement

learning continuously improving safety performance. Underpinning all of this is nearly a decade of R&D investment

exceeding 1 billion yuan, hundreds of version iterations over the past three

years, and the accumulation of tens of millions of kilometers of real-world

operational data.

Science and Technology Daily coverage

Guangming Online

Airports are the starting point, but Wu Gansha's

vision extends much further. He defines the keyword for the next decade as

"a new workforce paradigm." "A century ago, laborers traveled

abroad under harsh conditions as part of an earlier era of global mobility. Today, the unmanned vehicles and robots

being deployed worldwide are not merely products—they represent a new workforce

paradigm that takes on hazardous and repetitive tasks, allowing human workers

to focus on higher-value responsibilities." He projects that by 2030,

the global autonomous driving market will reach the trillion-dollar scale, and

the real economy will face growing labor gaps in high-risk operational

environments—gaps that AI Drivers can help address by supporting continuous

24/7 operations. Wu Gansha noted that an

AI Driver serves customers over a decade-long lifecycle—what UISEE delivers is

not hardware, but reliability and trust. "That is the hardest value to

commoditize," he added.

Guangming Online coverage

Economic Daily

Wu Gansha believes that by 2030, the global

autonomous driving market will reach the trillion-dollar scale, and labor gaps

in high-risk operational environments within the real economy could number in

the tens of millions. AI Drivers can

support continuous 24/7 operations, helping address these gaps safely and

efficiently. Underpinning this vision is UISEE's emerging general-purpose

capability: the U-Drive® system spans

passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, logistics, public transit, sanitation,

ports, mining, agriculture, and animal husbandry, and has been adapted to 50 to

60 vehicle models. "Working across so many vehicle models and

partnering with so many OEMs is, at its

core, about establishing foundational access points for physical AI."

Economic Daily coverage

China Daily

According to Frost & Sullivan, UISEE ranks

first in market share for Level 4 commercial vehicle autonomous driving in both

airport and industrial campus scenarios across Greater China, with a 90.5%

market share in the airport segment. Wu Gansha's assessment is direct: "Globally, UISEE is the only company

that has achieved large-scale autonomous operations without on-board safety

operators in airport scenarios. The industry as a whole is still at where

we were in 2019. That means it would take at least until 2032 for others to

reach where we are today in airport scenarios. We are not just the global

leader—we are the only one operating at this scale."

China Daily coverage

Nanfang Daily

UISEE has established deep partnerships with six

leading commercial vehicle manufacturers, deploying solutions in scenarios

including livestock transport, mining logistics, and power infrastructure

inspection. Wu Gansha outlined UISEE's business roadmap in three phases: in the

near term, continuing to expand airport and factory towing logistics, campus

shuttles, sanitation, and heavy-duty truck dedicated routes; in the medium

term, launching new products combining autonomous driving with embodied intelligence,

extending shuttles from campuses to public transit, heavy-duty trucks from

ports to trunk lines, and light trucks to urban distribution; in the long term,

RoboTaxi and trunk-line logistics.

Nanfang Daily coverage

Shiliuyun

The geographical environment of Urumqi Tianshan

International Airport further amplifies the complexity of deploying Level 4

autonomous driving technology. The region experiences long, severe winters with

extreme conditions including temperatures as low as -25°C, blizzards and ice

accumulation, low visibility, and strong winds—a rigorous proving ground for

autonomous driving deployment. UISEE has overcome a series of technical

challenges in complex environments through its full-stack in-house R&D capabilities, using the mature deployment results at

Urumqi Tianshan International Airport to demonstrate its global leadership in

commercial autonomous driving, while providing a replicable, proven reference

model for the large-scale deployment of autonomous driving technology.

Shiliuyun coverage

China Securities Journal

As a provider of large-scale commercial Level 4

autonomous driving solutions, UISEE has overcome a series of technical

challenges in complex environments, deploying its Level 4 autonomous driving

solution at Tianshan International Airport and achieving 1.6 million kilometers

of safe and reliable operations over more than a year without on-board safety

operators.

The technological foundation behind this

achievement is UISEE's U-Drive® full-scenario autonomous driving operating

system. A UISEE representative explained that the system is architected from

the ground up to meet the high safety requirements of airport scenarios.

Leveraging multimodal fusion perception and a multi-source redundant

positioning framework, it has been validated across complex conditions

including extreme cold, ice accumulation, and low visibility, ensuring that

vehicles maintain uninterrupted perception, stable positioning, and prudent

decision-making across diverse environments.

China Securities Journal coverage

Shanghai Securities News

Wu Gansha recalled that when the project launched

in 2020, the first major challenge was snow—snowflakes hitting the LiDAR

generated noise, making the algorithm detect a sky full of false obstacles, and

snow covering road markings made it difficult to determine the driving path.

More challenging still was the fact that extreme snow scenarios offered only

one data collection window per year—miss it and wait another full year.

Refining the snow-condition algorithm was set to "hard mode" from the

very beginning.

The UISEE team repeatedly

optimized and iterated within these limited windows, ultimately developing an

algorithm model for snowy conditions that enables the autonomous driving system

to maintain stable perception and safe navigation even in heavy snowfall. From extreme cold and blizzards to high temperatures and sandstorms, from humid

downpours to dry high winds, UISEE's AI Drivers have continuously refined their

perception, decision-making, and control capabilities across one extreme

weather scenario after another, building robust all-weather operational

capabilities that ensure stability and punctuality in complex environments.

Shanghai Securities News coverage

Securities Daily

Wu Gansha describes civil aviation as one of the most compelling scenarios for physical

AI—but the flip side of "most compelling" is "most

challenging." Aprons have no lane markings, satellite positioning is

severely disrupted by aircraft takeoffs and landings, and temperatures

alternate between blizzards at minus 20 degrees Celsius and summer heat of 60

to 70 degrees. Any positioning drift could cause a vehicle to intrude onto a

taxiway. "In the digital world, mistakes can be corrected; in the physical

world, even a small error can have severe consequences," he said.

Wu Gansha has calculated the timeline: UISEE

obtained the world's first airport autonomous driving license at the end of

2019, but true large-scale deployment did not begin until May 2023—a gap of

three and a half years. "Obtaining the license was only the first step.

Our safety requirements far exceed the regulatory standards," he said.

Securities Daily coverage

National Business Daily

Wu Gansha stated that the company is working to

further reduce costs across product hardware, delivery, and operations and

maintenance. Building on this, UISEE aims to generate recurring revenue through

a subscription model. He noted that the AI Driver subscription service can be

thought of as analogous to "a driver's salary"—if hardware, delivery, and operations and

maintenance costs can be further optimized, a more scalable and sustainable

business model becomes achievable.

In Wu Gansha's view, UISEE is not betting on any

single vehicle model, but rather continuously establishing more

"foundational access points for physical AI." He previously mentioned

that the company hopes to partner with

more vehicle models and OEMs, bring more AI Drivers into real-world operational

scenarios, and further advance the adoption of the subscription model.

National Business Daily coverage

Cailian Press

In Wu Gansha's view, the truly mature AI Driver business model of the future will be closer

to a subscription service rather than one-time vehicle sales. Under this

vision, autonomous driving companies first partner with more vehicle models and

OEMs to establish more "physical AI access points," then optimize

hardware, delivery, and operations and maintenance costs to gradually transform

one-time autonomous driving solutions into long-term subscription revenue.

"Once we complete certification and

integration with all parties, equipping

vehicles with AI Driver capabilities, the subscription service can begin

immediately after solution deployment, with flexible billing per AI Driver, per

kilometer driven, or per hour of usage," Wu Gansha explained. "This

is the business model we believe will have tremendous core value in the

future—the AI Driver subscription service."

Cailian Press coverage

21st Century Business Herald

This year, UISEE launched the "AI Driver

subscription service," which includes retrofitting autonomous driving kits

onto some existing vehicles and reducing customers' upfront investment through

financial leasing and subscription services. From a business model perspective,

this represents a meaningful evolution in how autonomous driving capability is

priced and delivered.

In the past, the primary offerings were an unmanned

vehicle, an autonomous driving system, or a project-based solution. The

subscription model values autonomous

driving capability over the extended lifecycle of a vehicle. A model that

has been proven and validated in real operations can more readily be adapted to

additional vehicle models and scenarios.

21st Century Business Herald coverage

Yicai

"Civil aviation can be said to have the

highest safety standards among all industries. At airports, a safety score of 99.9% is equivalent to zero."

Recently, in a keynote speech, Wu Gansha, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of

UISEE, emphasized this point when discussing airport autonomous driving.

On the same day, UISEE announced at Urumqi Tianshan

International Airport that its Level 4 autonomous driving fleet had surpassed

1.6 million kilometers in cumulative operations at the airport. This figure set

a record for large-scale commercial autonomous driving at civil aviation

airports in mainland China. In interviews with Yicai and other media that day,

Wu Gansha noted that the 1.6 million

kilometers was accumulated by the entire fleet in real commercial operations,

which is far more meaningful than single-vehicle mileage.

Yicai coverage

In addition, JRJ,

TMTPost, Che Dongxi, Yuanzhou Chuxing, KeyPoints, Guangcone Intelligence,

Zhiche Xingqiu, Gasgoo, GeekPark, IPO Early Know, Cyber Auto, NetEase, Sohu,

and Sina—among other industry and portal media outlets—have also provided

in-depth coverage from multiple perspectives on UISEE's achievements in the

smart civil aviation sector and its future business roadmap.

Guided by its vision of "being the world's AI

Driver," UISEE will continue to

strengthen its leading position in airport autonomous driving, and on this

basis, gradually build a global leadership position in commercial vehicle

autonomous driving, ultimately growing into the world's largest provider of

intelligent workforce solutions, while continuously exploring new application

possibilities in the field of physical AI and advancing safer, more efficient,

and sustainable mobility.