By Wang Zhe, Hu Jingyi, Song Haoxin, People’s Daily
China’s service exports have expanded rapidly in recent years, becoming increasingly intelligent, integrated and localized.
Official data show that China’s service exports have grown by an average of 14 percent annually over the past five years, with the value of exports in 2025 nearly doubling that of 2020.
In the first five months of 2026, service exports rose 21 percent year on year. Revenue from computer and information services, business services and intellectual property services increased by a combined 17 percent, accounting for 45 percent of overall service export growth.
How is Chinese expertise reaching more overseas markets? People’s Daily reporters visited several companies to find out.
Drone crop protection services “take flight” in Central Asia
Li Bin is a drone pilot with Xeme Airline Technology (Shandong) Group Co., Ltd., based in Jinan, capital of east China’s Shandong province. He has recently been preparing for upcoming overseas crop protection assignments.
As a member of the company’s service team, Li traveled to a large cotton farm in Kazakhstan’s Turkistan Region last year to provide drone-based crop protection services. During discussions about purchasing agricultural drones, the farm learned that Xeme Airline also offered pilot training, and ultimately chose a comprehensive service package.
Valued at roughly 6 million yuan ($885,988), the contract covered not only agricultural drone purchases but also a full integrated solution including hardware, software, pilot training and personnel management.
Kazakhstan suffers harsh daytime weather, with strong sand-laden winds and high temperatures. To lower the risk of drone damage, pilots often worked through the night. The team successfully completed crop protection operations across around 133,000 hectares of cotton fields for its Central Asian client.
“We have set up more than 50 training centers nationwide, with an annual capacity to train over 1,000 drone pilots,” said Li Aimin, chairman of the company. The company will cooperate with universities and research institutions to build industry-education integration platforms for the low-altitude economy, to cultivate more highly skilled pilots and professional maintenance personnel.
Intelligent in-vehicle systems expand global presence
“Open navigation, play music, check the weather at the destination, and locate charging stations along the route.”
With a simple voice command, an AI-powered in-vehicle system automatically coordinated multiple applications to meet the driver’s requests.
At the 2026 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition, Neusoft Corporation, an industry-leading provider of information technology, products and solutions, unveiled the version 7.0 of its global intelligent mobility solution, attracting widespread attention from both domestic and international automakers and supply chain partners.
“Within just over a month since the launch, we had received dozens of partnership inquiries, including 15 from overseas markets,” said Guan Xin, vice president of Neusoft and general manager of the corporation’s automotive intelligent innovation solutions business unit.
The new platform integrates previously separate in-vehicle software functions, significantly reducing the cost and complexity for Chinese automakers to work with different international automotive application providers.
From standalone navigation software to comprehensive intelligent mobility solutions, continuous upgrades in software technologies are strengthening the global competitiveness of China’s automotive industry.
In recent years, Neusoft’s overseas intelligent mobility business has maintained an average annual growth rate of around 50 percent. The company now works closely with more than 20 international partners to build a one-stop global automotive ecosystem featuring nearly 1,300 in-vehicle applications across more than 17 categories, including navigation, entertainment and payment services, in over 130 countries and regions.
Language services help Chinese culture reach global audiences
“Follow my lead — let’s move together!”
In the overseas edition of a Chinese-developed video game, natural and authentic dialogue enables international players to fully immerse themselves in the gaming experience. Those localized voice lines were produced by Lan-Bridge in southwest China’s Sichuan province.
“As China’s gaming industry expands globally, localization is about far more than translation — it’s about cultural communication,” said company chairman Zhu Xianchao.
According to Zhu, game dialogue must accurately reflect each character’s personality and fit the rhythm of the storyline, while also taking into account the cultural background and language habits of players in different countries and regions.
To achieve this, the company has established a dedicated game localization team of more than 1,000 members, including experienced gamers and scholars specializing in cultural studies, combining professional translation expertise with deep industry knowledge.
“Our goal is to serve as a trusted language partner for Chinese companies expanding overseas,” Zhu said.
As demand for international language services continues to grow, the company’s services now cover sectors including digital creative industries, advanced manufacturing and biomedicine. Its independently developed multilingual machine translation engine supports translation among more than 300 languages.
To address the language service needs of companies going global, Tianfu Software Park in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, together with industry partners, has launched a digital intelligent language public service platform.
By integrating the practical needs of businesses with professional language expertise, the platform provides not only translation of business documents and annual reports but also localization services for games, software and website interfaces, as well as specialized translation support for international patent applications and book publishing.
In addition, the platform has established a global talent pool that offers overseas staffing services and foreign talent recruitment in more than 100 languages, providing comprehensive language and human resource support for Chinese enterprises expanding into international markets.
China’s knowledge-intensive service exports maintain strong growth
