The results of the China Association of Inventions’ 2026 Invention and Entrepreneurship Achievement Awards were recently announced. The project “Key Technologies and Industrialization of Trusted Vehicle–Road Collaborative Perception and Intelligent Coordinated Control for Autonomous Driving,” jointly completed by Artificial Intelligent Interconnection Technology Co., Ltd. (AICT) and several industry, academic and research partners, won First Prize in the Achievement Awards. Built on AICT’s core Physical AI capabilities, the project has addressed multiple major bottlenecks in vehicle–road collaboration and achieved large-scale commercial deployment across a range of scenarios, giving strong impetus to the development of China’s vehicle–road–cloud integrated autonomous driving industry.
Addressing Industry Pain Points with a Physical AI-Driven Vehicle–Road–Cloud Integrated Technology System
Autonomous driving is a strategic technology driving scientific and technological revolutions and industrial transformation. Yet vehicle-only intelligence still faces practical challenges, including limited adaptability and safety constraints in severe weather and complex interactions between vehicles and people. Vehicle–road collaboration is an important China-led approach to enabling the large-scale deployment of autonomous driving. In real-world, open traffic environments, key obstacles to widespread adoption include ensuring the trustworthiness of roadside perception, achieving cross-domain situational awareness, and delivering meaningful gains through coordinated control.
As a global company specializing in high-precision Physical AI products and technologies, AICT is committed to bringing AI out of digital systems and into real-world spaces, developing high-precision Physical AI products, technologies and infrastructure for the physical world. With Physical AI as its technological foundation and a focus on perception and understanding in complex, real-world traffic environments, AICT has worked with partners including Tongji University, Shanghai Youdao Zhitu and the China Automotive Intelligent Connected Vehicle Research Institute to build an integrated vehicle–road–cloud technology system comprising “trusted roadside perception, enhanced in-vehicle cognition, and cloud-based coordinated control.” The project has produced three core categories of solutions: roadside intelligent computing equipment, in-vehicle intelligent driving systems, and cloud-based intelligent control platforms. Together, these establish a complete industrial value chain spanning key algorithm development, equipment and system engineering, and platform operations and services.
Leveraging Physical AI’s adaptive perception capabilities in complex real-world environments, the project effectively addresses practical challenges such as environmental interference, physical occlusion, and spatial and temporal heterogeneity between vehicle- and roadside-based observations. It transforms the vast volume of traffic information collected by roadside infrastructure into a trusted, usable data foundation, enabling vehicles to perceive and make decisions beyond their direct line of sight. Meanwhile, the cloud platform performs global coordination and optimized scheduling across multiple vehicles, balancing overall traffic efficiency with the safety of individual vehicles. This enables complex traffic scenarios to be managed through a combination of “seeing farther, understanding more clearly, and controlling more effectively.”
Scaling Physical AI Across Multiple Scenarios and Establishing Benchmarks for Vehicle–Road Collaboration in China and Overseas
The technological innovations have delivered significant real-world results. In urban road networks, the project has been deployed in more than 70 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In Beijing, a large-scale elevated roadside perception and computing system has been built, covering long stretches of road and a substantial number of on-street parking spaces. The solutions have helped reduce intersection waiting times in multiple locations, improve the precision of urban parking management, and support the transition from experience-based traffic management to data- and intelligence-driven governance.
The project has also been deployed in China and overseas in specialized settings such as ports and industrial parks, supporting the development of multiple autonomous transportation systems. It has enabled a large-scale overseas deployment of autonomous heavy-duty trucks by a Chinese company, with routine operations conducted without a driver in the cab. The project was selected for the Ministry of Transport’s first batch of pilot applications for autonomous driving. In addition, vehicle–road collaborative automated valet-parking systems have been deployed in more than 100 smart parking facilities, while the technologies are also widely used in unmanned transportation operations within industrial parks.
The project has also established a comprehensive intellectual property and standards framework, produced multiple high-quality academic papers, secured numerous patents granted in China and abroad, and contributed to the development of industry technology roadmaps and technical standards. These efforts support the standardization of vehicle–road collaboration and autonomous driving in ports. Since implementation began, the project has generated direct economic benefits of more than RMB 2 billion, fostering coordinated development across the intelligent connected vehicle and smart transportation value chains. It also provides solid technological support for China’s strategy to build a strong transportation sector and for the country’s “dual-carbon” goals.
Going forward, AICT will continue to deepen its work in Physical AI and advance its technologies for trusted vehicle–road collaborative perception and intelligent coordinated control. The company will further expand commercial applications in areas such as urban transportation and port logistics, using technological innovation to support the high-quality development of China’s vehicle–road–cloud integrated autonomous driving industry.