In a recent development, a fully automated terminal at the Nansha Port in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, started operations late last month.

The terminal, which combines multimodal services related to sea, river and railway transportation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, was built by domestic scientific and technological enterprises and institutions and includes four 100,000 metric-ton berths. It is the first of its kind in the GBA.

Having integrated with advanced technologies such as Beidou navigation, 5G communication systems, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles, the terminal could help improve the Nansha Port's annual container throughput to exceed 24 million twenty-foot equivalent units, which is the unit used by the industry to measure the cargo capacity of a ship or a port.

"The terminal will provide exemplary solutions for the automation upgrading and transformation of traditional terminals in the world," said Lionel Ni, president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou).

In the transportation sector, Chinese autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai, which is headquartered in Guangzhou's Nansha district, has introduced robotaxi services in the district's core area covering 300 square kilometers.

"With the continuous growth of scientific and technological research and development as well as the application of autonomous driving in recent years, we are no longer a follower, but a global leader in terms of policy openness, technological development and user acceptance in the self-driving field," said Mo Luyi, vice-president of Pony.ai.

In addition to Pony.ai, an increased number of enterprises in Guangdong have taken on leading roles globally in various sectors. In the past decade, mobile phone giant Huawei has developed rapidly in the fields of network communication and intelligent terminals. The same can be said of automaker BYD in electric vehicles and tech company DJI in civil drones.