On October 15, the 2026 China Geospatial Information Industry Conference opened in Yongchuan, Chongqing, under the theme "Digital and Intelligent Foundation for Spatiotemporal Data, Scenarios Empowering Industry." At the opening ceremony, Li Weisen, President of the China Association for Geospatial Information Industry, released the China Geospatial Information Industry Development Report (2026). The report presented a set of figures: in 2025, the total industry output value was 900.5 billion yuan, up 5.9% year on year. In other words, GIS, an industry often called a sunrise industry, has now reached the threshold of one trillion yuan.

Comparison with Other Industries

What does one trillion yuan mean? Perhaps this figure is hard to grasp, so let me compare it with other industries. Below are the 20 broad categories in the National Bureau of Statistics' preliminary GDP accounting table for 2025. Unit: 100 million yuan.

  • Agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery: 99107
  • Industry: 416826 (manufacturing: 346747)
  • Construction: 86425
  • Wholesale and retail: 145808
  • Transportation, warehousing and postal services: 62092
  • Accommodation and catering: 26403
  • Information transmission, software and information technology services: 70599
  • Financial services: 101337
  • Real estate: 83024
  • Leasing and business services: 63666

The following categories were not published, so we estimate them using the fixed extrapolation method based on 2024 industry structure shares.

  • Scientific research and technical services: 46210
  • Water conservancy, environment and public facilities management: 9860
  • Resident services, repair and other services: 19220
  • Education: 42130
  • Health and social work: 29140
  • Culture, sports and entertainment: 8150
  • Public management, social security and social organizations: 83143
  • Mining: 36212
  • Electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply: 33867

In addition, according to data disclosed at the conference, by the end of 2025, the number of entities engaged in China's geospatial information industry was about 269,000, up 11.1% year on year. In 2025, about 45,000 new market entities were registered, up 19.7% year on year. Among market entities in the geospatial information industry, enterprises accounted for 94.8% and individual businesses 5.1%. The industry employed about 4.002 million people, up nearly 0.1% year on year.

Based on the above information, the geospatial information industry ranks roughly second from the bottom, and its output value has kept growing for years, so it does live up to the title of a "sunrise industry."

Comparison with the International GIS Industry

I roughly checked Geospatial World's GeoBuiz report. The global space and geospatial market in 2025 was about USD 677 billion. North America in 2025 was about USD 195 billion. The publicly available figures for the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany are for 2023, at about USD 90 billion, USD 7.8 billion and USD 6.9 billion respectively.

At an exchange rate of about 7.2 yuan per US dollar, China's output value is somewhat higher than that of the United States. Of course, GeoBuiz measures the commercial geospatial market, which is not consistent with China's statistical scope.

How Can the Industry Break Through One Trillion Yuan?

Academician Guo Renzhong said: "At present, the supply of geospatial information industry services for government is becoming mature, but there is still huge room to improve service capabilities for industry markets and end users." The B2B and B2C markets may be important growth potential for the geospatial information industry in the future.

Current GIS vendors are also making various explorations, such as SuperMap's AgentX, Esri China's GeoScene Xinchuang spatiotemporal intelligent agent appliance, Zondy's spatiotemporal intelligent agent, Cangqiong's spatiotemporal digital-intelligence foundation, GeoStar Spatiotemporal's Yuanxiang modeling engine, Siwei's "Siwei Gaojing," ShiBao's TerraSAR-X, Feima Robotics' aerial survey UAVs, and Zhongke Yuntu's intelligent UAV base stations.

Conclusion

At present, industry development has also encountered some bottlenecks. For example, Zhang Liang, President of Zondy Software, said that the ceiling for project-based business is becoming increasingly obvious, and Gao Wenming, General Manager of Beijing Institute of Survey and Design, also said that the market is shrinking, payment collection is slowing, and cash flow is tight.

How long do you think it will take this industry to surpass one trillion yuan? Feel free to leave a comment.

References

  1. Hualong Net, "Total Output Value Exceeded 900 Billion Yuan Last Year! 2026 China Geospatial Information Industry Conference Opens in Yongchuan, Chongqing": https://www.cqnews.net/web/content_1560360397999783936.html
  2. China News Service, "Ministry of Natural Resources: China's Geospatial Information Industry Total Output Value Exceeded 900 Billion Yuan in 2025": https://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2026/10-15/10714925.shtml
  3. China.com.cn (China News Service release), "China's Geospatial Information Industry Total Output Value Exceeded 900 Billion Yuan in 2025": http://news.china.com.cn/2026-10/16/content_118736101.shtml
  4. China Natural Resources News, "Moving Toward a Trillion-Yuan Industry—Observations from the 2026 China Geospatial Information Industry Conference": https://www.iziran.net/news.html?aid=5500056
  5. China Association for Geospatial Information Industry exhibitor introduction (Esri China): https://npo160689.npoall.com/news/itemid-310246.html
  6. China Association for Geospatial Information Industry exhibitor introduction (Cangqiong Digital): https://npo160689.npoall.com/news/itemid-310296.html
  7. National Bureau of Statistics, "Preliminary Accounting Results of China's GDP for Q4 and Full Year 2025": https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202601/t20260120_1962349.html
  8. Geospatial World, "Global Space & Geospatial Market Outlook" (GeoBuiz 2026): https://geospatialworld.net/roundtable/global-space-and-geospatial-market-outlook/
  9. Geospatial World, "India, ANZ to be Fastest Growing Geospatial Markets by 2025" (GeoBuiz 2023 country figures): https://geospatialworld.net/news/india-anz-growing-geospatial-markets-2025/
  10. IMARC, "United States Geographic Information System (GIS) Market": https://www.imarcgroup.com/geographic-information-system-market-united-states
  11. IMARC, "Japan Geographic Information System (GIS) Market": https://www.gii.co.jp/report/imarc1729358-japan-geographic-information-system-market-report.html