China Telecom, Jiujiang state capital form 60 million yuan low-altitude joint venture

China Telecom has formed a 60 million yuan (about $8.5 million) low-altitude joint venture with Jiujiang state capital, moving the telecoms giant into airspace management and drone services in the Yangtze River port city.

The venture, Jiangxi Zhihui Low-Altitude Technology Co., Ltd., was registered recently with Li Huide as legal representative, according to corporate records database Tianyancha. Its shareholders are Jiujiang Industrial Development Group Co., Ltd. and China Telecom Unmanned Technology (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd.

The deal matters because China Telecom is pushing beyond its core connectivity business, where growth has slowed, into a sector that local governments across China have been promoting heavily.

Aiming beyond drone sales

The venture's approved business scope goes well beyond general aviation services. It also covers civil aircraft maintenance, training of civil aviation maintenance personnel and aviation operations support.

That combination points to a heavier industrial role than selling drones or building software: the company is set up to run an integrated operations hub across the low-altitude supply chain.

Why telecoms want the airspace

China Telecom Unmanned Technology is the group's dedicated low-altitude arm. It carries the parent's 5G-Advanced integrated sensing and communication, its Tianyi Xingyun low-altitude flight platform and satellite communications into industry applications.

For carriers, low-altitude business offers a rare chance to break out of the pure connectivity role. Conventional 5G antennas point at the ground, leaving airspace below 300 to 1,000 metres weakly covered or blind. Drones on long inspection, logistics or rescue flights risk losing their link.

Integrated sensing and communication lets the network not only carry data but also detect small aircraft, creating digital airspace surveillance.

Yet carriers without local scenarios remain backstage suppliers of SIM cards and data. A stand-alone platform with Jiujiang Industrial Development Group is China Telecom's move to become a local low-altitude public service operator.

The state partner's assets

Jiujiang Industrial Development Group brings real, recurring demand: inspections along the Yangtze riverbank, fire prevention in the Mount Lu forest, water management at Poyang Lake and security at large industrial parks. It can also handle local airspace applications, landing site planning and earmarked fiscal funding.

Under the equity tie-up, China Telecom supplies the sensing network, the Xingyun management platform and pilot training. The local state partner brings concession-style contracts for riverbank ecology, port logistics and emergency command.

Drone services that were previously outsourced piecemeal can be folded into the venture, turning into stable, long-term government and enterprise digital contracts.

Maintenance and pilot training

Further out, the venture targets the high-margin aftermarket: aircraft maintenance and pilot training.

China's drone fleet is growing fast, but the sector faces a shortage of repair capacity, a high crash rate and a lack of certified professional pilots. The maintenance and training licences listed in the Tianyancha record are barriers that asset-light software firms struggle to match.

Jiujiang's position as a transport hub in northern Jiangxi and a Yangtze shipping node supports a regional one-stop repair centre and standardised training base. That would let the venture take scheduled maintenance work from governments and companies along the middle and lower Yangtze, and push certified pilots into downstream inspection operations.

The shift: from selling hardware to collecting recurring maintenance and training fees.

From announcements to operations

The registration sends a clear signal to the low-altitude and industrial internet sectors: the phase of drawing flight paths and telling stories at launch events is fading.

A viable low-altitude business needs the network-building capacity of a state telecoms group meshed with the heavy-asset scenarios of local state capital. China Telecom and Jiujiang state capital have put real money into an operating base. The test now is whether the licensed platform can become a working low-altitude highway, given rigid airspace approval procedures and the demands of frequent commercial flights.