On August 2nd, the Shenzhen Conference on High Quality Development of Low altitude Economy was held, which proposed to take the lead in laying out low altitude economy globally, building low altitude intelligent integration infrastructure, creating facility network, air network, air route network and service network, and aiming to become the city with the most comprehensive demonstration of low altitude economy. Since the beginning of this year, the low altitude economy has become a "new trend" with high popularity. Domestic cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Chengdu have successively released industrial plans. In early July, Guangdong Province and Guangzhou City held meetings related to low altitude economy and introduced a series of measures; Currently, among the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta, five cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Huizhou have released city level planning documents. The competition for the "City of the Sky" has become a "hundred boats vying for the flow". From a broader perspective, the low altitude economy has become a key future industry for global layout. The Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area is a pioneer in China's low altitude economy, with a strong industrial foundation and huge market demand. It has two international cities with a volume of three trillion yuan, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. How does the Greater Bay Area respond to domestic and international competitors? The Shenzhen conference released a series of strong signals and new goals for the development of the low altitude economy: firstly, it proposed to accelerate the construction of the "four major centers", namely the low altitude economy headquarters research and development center, high-end manufacturing center, full field demonstration and verification center, and one-stop solution supply center. The second is to take the lead in laying out the "low altitude brain" globally. At the meeting, the pioneer version of the intelligent integrated low altitude system was released. The system was developed and constructed by the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area Digital Economy Research Institute, and is a subset of system functions that were released first to address the pain points that urgently need to be solved in the current development of the low altitude economy. Thirdly, we will accelerate the deployment of new low altitude information infrastructure, actively explore advanced communication, navigation, and monitoring technologies such as 5G-A sensing integration, Beidou high-precision positioning, and millimeter wave, and carry out pilot construction of low altitude flight meteorological monitoring. Breaking away from the Greater Bay Area, although other cities in China do not have the strong industrial chain advantages of Shenzhen, they also have the ambition to compete for the "Sky City". Looking at the layout of low altitude economy industries in China, we can roughly draw three circles: the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Chengdu Chongqing region. These three places all have industrial policies, industrial foundations, and market foundations, which are giving birth to several "sky cities". The Yangtze River Delta region has a strong foundation in the aviation industry, and with the industrial chain advantages of core enterprises such as COMAC, the electromechanical industry cluster is basically concentrated here. The electronics industry chain in the Pearl River Delta region is dense, and relying on the advantages of consumer grade drones and electric vehicle industry chains, it is expected to replicate the successful development path of the new energy vehicle field. The Chengdu Chongqing region aims to build a low altitude economic center in the western region, establish collaborative management airspace and low altitude visual flight channels, and actively innovate flight test approval models. How to compete for a trillion dollar cake when competing with each other on the chessboard? At present, Guangdong has issued a provincial-level plan, and the "Action Plan for Promoting High quality Development of Low altitude Economy in Guangdong Province (2024-2026)" proposes a target of 300 billion yuan in the scale of low altitude economy industry within 3 years. At the municipal level, Shenzhen started early and acted quickly, becoming the first city in China to legislate for a low altitude economy. An implementation plan will be introduced by the end of 2022, and action measures will be launched by the end of 2023. Guangzhou closely follows Shenzhen and implemented a plan in May this year to simultaneously initiate the legislative work of relevant regulations; In July, several measures were launched to support the development of urban low altitude industries, including the launch of the Guangzhou Low altitude Economic Industry Fund with a scale of 10 billion yuan and the Guangzhou Low altitude Infrastructure System Construction Plan. From the provincial level to key cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, the Greater Bay Area strives to take the lead in the low altitude economy and seize the initiative. Taking advantage of the trillion dollar industry track, it is widely believed in the industry that the low altitude economy lacks mature and high-frequency application scenarios. To meet the daily needs of the general public and ensure that there are truly users willing to use and pay sustainably. At present, the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area has conducted commercial exploration and large-scale trials in application scenarios such as logistics, tourism, agriculture, fire protection, and inspection. Guangzhou has recently released 12 application scenarios for low altitude economy and the construction of unmanned systems in the entire space. Among them, the low altitude economy includes 6 application scenarios such as transportation and travel, low altitude cultural tourism, logistics and distribution, government inspection, agricultural and forestry plant protection, emergency rescue, etc. The prospects are promising. Scene setting, industry singing. If we want to make the cake into a trillion level scale, we cannot do without the planning of the industrial chain. The low altitude economy has a long industrial chain, covering basic industries such as aircraft research and development, low altitude flight infrastructure construction and operation, and flight service support. The construction of low altitude flight infrastructure is an important support for building the 'Sky City'. In the Greater Bay Area, there are already multiple layouts in the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In Shenzhen, Longgang District has launched the first "low altitude brain" in China, and the low altitude intelligent fusion infrastructure has been piloted and applied at the Longgang Low altitude Intelligent Fusion Testing Base; Pingshan District has launched the Shenzhen Land Air Integrated Intelligent Networked Comprehensive Traffic Testing Base, which can meet the requirements of various types of unmanned aerial vehicles and eVTOL testing flights for airspace, flight altitude, confidentiality, etc; Yantian District has established the country's first UAM urban air traffic integration operation comprehensive support base; Bao'an District has established the first standardized urban air traffic operation demonstration center in China... In March of this year, the Civil Aviation Administration of China explicitly supported the construction of a national low altitude economic industry comprehensive demonstration zone in Shenzhen, which will receive greater support in terms of policies, funds, and projects. Guangzhou has also made great efforts in its layout, creating the country's first low altitude economic application demonstration island and launching the construction of flying car infrastructure. By 2027, "1+5+100" ground takeoff and landing facilities will be built in Guangzhou, including one runway type general airport in Zengcheng, five hub type vertical takeoff and landing sites such as the Pearl River New Town and Guangzhou South Railway Station, and 100 normalized takeoff and landing sites covering 11 districts of the city. But scene development is not an easy task, and new scenes require subsidies and support from the local government. Similarly, for small unmanned aerial vehicle low altitude cargo routes, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Wuhan have set a reward of 200000 yuan for each newly opened route. On this basis, Suzhou will also provide an additional reward of 100000 yuan for every 5000 additional flights. Based on the flights of the previous year, the maximum annual reward for each enterprise can reach 5 million yuan. Guangzhou has released policies that provide a maximum annual subsidy of 500000 yuan for low altitude freight application routes that have been opened and approved by the competent authorities, with at least one starting and ending point in Guangzhou and are operating on a regular basis. The subsidy amount exceeds that of many cities, reflecting Guangzhou's determination to develop a low altitude economy. Competing for key airworthiness technologies, leading companies seek breakthroughs. Ten years ago, the new energy vehicle race saw winners such as Tesla and NIO. Now, in the low altitude economic runway with policy support and increasing scenarios, who can break through first? In the field of drones, after more than 20 years of accumulation, production enterprises represented by DJI in Shenzhen have become the main providers of consumer grade drones worldwide and leading enterprises in the drone industry. The output value of industrial grade civilian drones accounts for about 60% of the country's total. Guangzhou has several key enterprises dedicated to testing, agriculture, industry, logistics, fire protection, performance, and external systems, such as Jifei Technology, Electronic Fifth Institute, and Huake, which hold important market shares. EVTOL is another branch of low altitude aircraft, located in a new "wind vane". This trend can also be seen from the investment direction of the capital market. According to the survey, the majority of companies were established around 2020, with financing rounds ranging from A or A+rounds and sizes ranging from tens of millions to 100 million US dollars. The performance of enterprises in the Greater Bay Area is impressive. Xiaopeng Huitian completed over $500 million in Series A financing in October 2021, setting a record for the largest single financing in the field of low altitude manned aircraft in Asia; Yihang Intelligent went public in the United States on December 12, 2019, and has received nearly $200 million in total financing to date. In addition, eVTOL manufacturing companies such as Shanghai Fengfei Aviation, Shide Technology, Volant, Hefei Zero Gravity, Zhuhai Yufeng Future, and Chengdu Wofei Changkong have all entered the "Billion Yuan Club". From a regional distribution perspective, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have gathered a group of leading enterprises in the low altitude industry and leading operational service providers in the low altitude flight industry, with both cities having over 4000 enterprises, ranking first and second in the country. In terms of equipment manufacturing, Guangzhou has three local enterprises that have long been committed to the research and development of electric vertical takeoff and landing and flying vehicles, namely Xiaopeng Huitian, Yihang Intelligence, and Guangzhou Automobile Group; Shenzhen has introduced leading domestic and foreign electric vertical takeoff and landing companies such as Germany's Baihua and Fengfei Aviation. As application layer enterprises, CITIC Haizhi and Eastern Navigation already have strong operational advantages in traditional service areas, as well as operational capabilities in emerging consumer markets. They are expected to activate the low altitude consumer market in the Greater Bay Area with more cost-effective services. Flying cars have taken off, but 'how far can they fly' remains a continuous research question. In the view of Professor Zhang Yangjun from the School of Vehicles and Transportation at Tsinghua University, intelligent driving and airworthiness safety are key technical issues that need to be addressed in order for flying cars to achieve rapid development. The three key technological breakthroughs are the new energy power technology with high power density, high efficiency, and high adaptability, the intelligent driving platform technology with high safety, high reliability, and all-weather capabilities, and the three-dimensional intelligent transportation technology with safety, efficiency, cloud network integration, and road air integration. The Greater Bay Area has a strong industrial foundation in new energy, intelligent driving, and smart transportation, and is expected to be the first in China to achieve breakthroughs, compete for the "Sky City", and embark on the unique path of "CityFly" with Chinese characteristics. (New Society)