On June 17, 2026, at 11:58 AM Beijing time, a Kuaizhou-11 Y13 carrier rocket successfully placed the first batch of five Weili Space 05 group satellites, labeled "Kechuang Pidu," into their designated orbit at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
These satellite payloads, entirely developed and manufactured in the Pidu District of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, function like a "super Wi-Fi amplifier" for the BeiDou system, elevating three-dimensional navigation and positioning accuracy from the traditional decimeter level to centimeter-level precision.
Given the leading landscape of commercial aerospace hubs like Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi'an, the question arises: how is Chengdu breaking the ceiling on BeiDou positioning accuracy? The answer lies in the deep empowerment of Sichuan Province's "Artificial Intelligence+" No.1 Innovation Project, a long-established industrial technology foundation, a business environment supported by coordinated efforts at the provincial, municipal, and district levels, and an ecosystem logic built on differentiated collaboration.
Strategic Anchoring in the Mission of a Space Power
The leap of BeiDou positioning to centimeter-level accuracy represents a concrete achievement of the national strategy to become a space power, implemented at the local level. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China explicitly proposed accelerating the building of a manufacturing powerhouse, a quality powerhouse, a space powerhouse, a transportation powerhouse, and a digital powerhouse.
By 2025, China's core commercial aerospace industry scale had reached 1.01 trillion yuan, growing nearly 7% year-on-year, and the BeiDou spatiotemporal industry is entering a rapid development phase. As a national strategic hinterland, Sichuan Province holds inherent advantages and a pioneering foundation in the satellite internet industry.
In May 2026, the "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the 'Artificial Intelligence+' No.1 Innovation Project in Sichuan Province" was issued, setting a target of gathering over 2,500 AI enterprises and reaching an industrial scale exceeding 400 billion yuan by 2030. BeiDou high-precision spatiotemporal information is positioned as one of the core technology foundations enabling AI across various industries.
In September 2026, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments jointly issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicles," proposing to deepen the integrated development of automotive and information communication technologies, and to promote the vehicle-mounted application of technologies such as direct satellite connectivity and the BeiDou system.
Previously, at the provincial level, the "Sichuan Province Commercial Aerospace High-Quality Development Action Plan (2025-2030)" was released, which lays out infrastructure such as public testing platforms, opens major application scenarios, establishes a special fund for the BeiDou industry, and provides top-level institutional guarantees.
The "Chengdu Satellite Internet and Satellite Application Industry Development Plan (2023-2030)" explicitly sets the goal of striving to build a 100-billion-yuan satellite internet and satellite application industry cluster by 2030, comprehensively establishing Chengdu as a benchmark city for satellite internet and applications. In recent years, Chengdu has incorporated the satellite internet and BeiDou spatiotemporal industries into its key city-wide industry chain development strategy, continuously deepening business environment reforms to bridge the last mile of industrial services.
The Pidu District has supported this with an initial 1 billion yuan parent fund and a 1.5 billion yuan special commercial aerospace fund, implementing policies for enterprise benefits that are "application-free and directly accessible," and establishing a "center + station" service system for businesses, thereby constructing a closed loop of policy and service coordinated at the national, provincial, municipal, and district levels.
Unlike the full-industry-chain satellite and rocket manufacturing of the "South Rockets, North Satellites" model or pathways focused on "aerospace propulsion + optical remote sensing payloads," Chengdu has chosen a differentiated niche. It focuses on communication-navigation integrated payload development, highlighting its "AI + BeiDou" technological characteristics and advantages in low-altitude economy applications. This strategic choice is the fundamental logic enabling Chengdu's breakthrough in navigation augmentation.
Technological Breakthrough: Dual-Driven Precision Increase in Payloads and Chips
The realization of centimeter-level positioning relies on low Earth orbit (LEO) navigation augmentation constellation technology as its core support. Chengdu has seized the two most critical links—payloads and chips—leveraging the "Artificial Intelligence+" No.1 Innovation Project to integrate AI algorithms throughout the entire chain of technological breakthroughs.
The "Weili Space" LEO navigation augmentation constellation plans to deploy 240 satellites, providing precise augmentation to BeiDou signals through a satellite cluster in low orbit, effectively creating a high-density signal enhancement network in space. The satellite payloads launched this time were entirely developed and produced, from components to single machines, in the Pidu District.
Relying on the Communication-Navigation Integrated Satellite Networking and Industrial Application Innovation Center, the Pidu District is building a flexible satellite development base and a commercial aerospace public testing and pilot center, accelerating the development of medium-to-large communication and remote sensing satellites and large starboard digital phased array antennas, thereby pushing research results quickly from the drawing board to actual products.
This technological confidence stems from long-term industrial accumulation. Leveraging the research strengths of CETC and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu has deeply cultivated expertise in BeiDou radio frequency, baseband algorithms, and high-precision positioning engines, forming a complete industry chain spanning "chips-terminals-software-platforms-services."
Currently, Sichuan Province has built 251 provincial-level BeiDou ground-based augmentation reference stations, and Chengdu boasts over 300 companies in the entire BeiDou industry chain. Among them, independently developed BeiDou-3 multi-mode baseband chips can achieve millimeter-level positioning accuracy.
Chengdu treats AI as the core variable for breaking the positioning accuracy limit, focusing on building a "space-ground integrated" AI+BeiDou technology system. On the space segment, a company in Chengdu's High-tech Zone launched the world's first space computing constellation, equipped with onboard intelligent computers offering single-satellite computing power of up to 744 TOPS, enabling real-time dynamic optimization of signal correction models in orbit and enhancing the stability and responsiveness of centimeter-level positioning.
On the ground, several companies are breaking through traditional positioning accuracy bottlenecks by integrating AI algorithms into BeiDou signal processing. Through multi-source data fusion and intelligent error compensation, they are extending static positioning accuracy from the centimeter level toward the millimeter level.
With a network in space and intelligent manufacturing on the ground, technology as the core, and applications as the driver, Chengdu will focus its payload technology breakthroughs on three main directions: communication payloads, navigation augmentation payloads, and situational awareness payloads. The BeiDou spatiotemporal industry will concentrate its core research on the cross-integration of communication-navigation payloads, navigation chips, and AI algorithms, continuously strengthening the "AI + BeiDou" technology foundation.
Ecological Agglomeration: A Closed-Loop Development of District Coordination and Scenario Implementation
Technological breakthroughs are only the first step. Whether a sustainable industrial ecosystem can be formed is the key measure of long-term competitiveness in the BeiDou spatiotemporal industry track. Chengdu's answer is clear: differentiated development across districts, AI+BeiDou integration, deep scenario implementation, and a linkage between capital and industry, activating the industry's internal driving force with a high-quality business environment.
For instance, the Pidu District focuses on LEO navigation augmentation, building the Communication-Navigation Integrated Satellite Networking and Industrial Application Innovation Center. Chongzhou focuses on space computing, with the "Chongzhou" satellite establishing a space-based AI computing system. Jinjiang District is dedicated to remote sensing monitoring and smart city applications, with the "Jinjiang Xingyuan" satellite focused on surface services. The High-tech Zone is laying out a satellite internet industrial park to create an integrated cluster for satellite and payload manufacturing. The Tianfu New Area focuses on satellite terminals and key components, attracting chain-leading enterprises and forming a coordinated industrial resonance pattern across the entire region.
Chengdu adheres to the model of "chain leaders pose challenges, scenarios are opened," promoting the deep integration of "AI + BeiDou" with the real economy along a distinctive "technology + scenario" development path. In the low-altitude economy sector, centimeter-level positioning is combined with AI flight dispatch systems to provide full-airspace, high-precision situational awareness for industrial drones and eVTOLs. In geological disaster monitoring, BeiDou millimeter-level displacement monitoring combined with AI intelligent early warning algorithms enables real-time capture of mountain deformation. In smart city construction, it empowers the city's digital brain, achieving precise positioning of urban components and leading the nation in refined urban governance.
Simultaneously, Chengdu employs an investment-driven and chain-leader-led investment attraction model, using industrial funds as leverage to attract companies along the industry chain. It is also preparing to establish the Sichuan Province Communication-Navigation Integrated Satellite Networking and Industrial Application Ecosystem Association to aggregate resources across the entire chain of government, industry, academia, research, and application. Taking advantage of the national pilot program for market-oriented factor allocation reform, the province, city, and district levels work in tandem to optimize industrial services across carrier supply, pilot sharing, talent cultivation, and technology finance, progressively building a positive development loop of "capital + industry + technology + ecosystem + service."
From being a "follower" of BeiDou signals to a "pathfinder" in centimeter-level positioning, Chengdu's leap is not a coincidence. As the window for large-scale satellite internet networking opens during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the Pidu District's driving model centered on the "flexible satellite development base + commercial aerospace public testing and pilot center" and its benchmark centimeter-level positioning technology will continue to drive upgrades across the entire commercial aerospace industry chain, injecting sustained momentum into Chengdu's ambition to become the core highland of Western China's commercial aerospace sector.
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