China sets up high-altitude drone hub in Tibet to boost border operations

Beijing: China has established a drone research and development centre near Mount Everest in Tibet to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for operations in high-altitude areas to bolster border patrols, security, logistics and transport.

Tibet, often referred to as the roof of the world, is over 4,000 metres high. The cold high-altitude plateau is also low on Oxygen. With rugged terrain and rapidly changing weather, it is regarded as an ideal ground for developing drone technology, according to Chinese engineers.

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The Plateau Drone R&D Application Centre was launched at Xizang (Tibet) University on July 3, marking the official launch of China's first professional platform dedicated entirely to the research, development and practical deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in high-altitude plateau environments, state-run Xinhua news agency reported earlier from provincial capital Lhasa.

The high-altitude centre is expected to provide an advantage for China in its ongoing competition for technological dominance with the US.

The centre's establishment is a key step by Xizang University to build on its strengths in plateau sciences, align with national low-altitude economic development strategies, and address the region's practical needs while fostering new interdisciplinary strengths, the Xinhua report said.

"Our existing 'Plateau Science and Technology' disciplinary cluster, national Outstanding Engineer teams, and the Autonomous Region's Innovation Centre for Smart Construction and Resilience of Major Plateau Infrastructure will provide strong support for the centre," Sun Xianzhong, Vice-Chair of the Xizang Autonomous Regional People's Congress Standing Committee and Party Secretary of Xizang University, told Xinhua.

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"Building on the recent approval of new programmes in Artificial Intelligence and New Energy Science and Engineering, we have now also formally registered the micro-specialty 'Plateau Intelligent Low-Altitude UAV Applications'."

Going forward, the centre will target core "bottleneck" technical challenges for high-altitude UAVs and build integrated platforms aimed at ecological protection, border patrol, security and transport geological monitoring and emergency supply delivery, Sun said.

The launch of the centre comes as the technology competition between the US and China intensified, with high-altitude drone logistics around Everest emerging as a testing ground for supremacy.

Since 2024, Nepal's local operator, Airlift Technology, has been deploying heavy-lift drones from Chinese manufacturer DJI to transport climbing supplies to upper camps and haul away garbage and human waste, reducing hazards for local Sherpas, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.