A year ago the city of Qingdao had just a handful of autonomous vehicles.
Now it has more than almost anywhere else on Earth.
One firm, Neolix, has put around 1,200 unmanned delivery vans on local roads;
it hopes to have 4,000 by the end of the year.
With several other autonomous taxi and food-delivery projects under way,
Qingdao exemplifies how rapidly artificial intelligence is transforming China.
It is also the front line of the clash between unmanned vehicles and drivers.
Autonomous cars and drones are being deployed in China at a dizzying pace.
About 33,000 short-range delivery vehicles, including the ones in Qingdao, were on Chinese roads at the end of 2025.
The number of unmanned cabs is expected to hit 14,000 by the end of 2026.
Goldman Sachs, a bank,
reckons that more than 700,000 robotaxis (meaning 12% of all ride-hailing vehicles) will roam Chinese cities within five years.
Meituan, a delivery super-app, believes it could use drones for 10% of the country's instant food deliveries,
of which 60bn were made last year.
Though each such delivery is a technological miracle, in the short run it may deprive a human driver of a fare.
This puts Chinese leaders in a bind: they want to lead the world in AI and automation
but not destroy jobs.
An economic plan for the next five years says the country must "prevent and resolve large-scale unemployment risks".
In April a cyber-security watchdog told developers in a draft document
that they should "not apply AI with the goal of replacing human employment".