5G Advanced powers world’s largest fleet of driverless coal mining trucks in China

Contributed Article

The 100-strong fleet of autonomous electric mining trucks are set to improve both safety and efficiency at the Yimin open-pit coal mine in Inner Mongolia

This month marked a significant step in the development of intelligent mining, with Chinese energy giant Huaneng Group deploying the world’s largest fleet of unmanned electric mining trucks.

The 100 cabinless vehicles have begun operations at the Yimin open-pit coal mine in Inner Mongolia, China, each capable of loading and hauling up to 90 tonnes of material across the site.

Powered by electric batteries, this new fleet is carbon neutral and can operate continuously for 24 hours a day without human intervention.

Perhaps most importantly, these autonomous vehicles remove the need to expose human workers to the mine’s inhospitable environment, where temperatures can reach as low as -48.5°C and hazardous road conditions making driving dangerous.

According to Li Shuxue, Chairman of Huaneng Inner Mongolia Eastern Energy, the truck fleet has already demonstrated operational benefits over its human-operated predecessors, increasing their overall transport efficiency by 20%.

The deployment comes as part of a joint innovation project between China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. (China Huaneng), Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group, Huawei, and State Grid Smart Internet of Vehicles. The partners intend to further expand the truck fleet in the coming years, aiming for 300 of the vehicles to be operational over the next three years.

5G Advanced to underpin more efficient mining operations

This rollout of the autonomous vehicle fleet would not have been possible without the deployment of a 5G Advanced network, providing uplink speeds of up to 500 Mbps and latency of just 20 milliseconds, both of which are crucial for enabling autonomous vehicles to make driving decisions in real-time.

5G Advanced, sometimes known as 5.5G, boasts significant improvements in performance compared to 5G, including better efficiency, faster uplink speeds, and greater capacity.

The benefits of 5G Advanced networks for industrial operations are becoming increasingly well known. Huaneng Group itself said it first identified the need for a 5G network in 2022 and quickly began working with China Mobile Inner Mongolia to explore its deployment. By April 2023, initial autonomous vehicle tests were underway, with the first vehicles working commercial shifts in March this year.

In addition to the 5G Advanced network itself, Huaneng Ruichi’s truck fleet is also supported by a range of cloud infrastructure solutions, including Huawei’s Commercial Vehicle Autonomous Driving Cloud Service (CVADCS). This solution combines data from each vehicle and across the mining site to provide precise, real-time location information to the fleet, enabling route optimisation and increased efficiency, even in low-visibility conditions that would pose a challenge to human drivers.

Modernising China’s coal industry

The launch of this electric fleet – the world’s largest at an open pit mine – marks a significant step in China’s drive towards building a greener energy base for the nation.

Despite a surge in renewable energy projects in recent years, coal undeniably remains the backbone of China’s industrial strategy. In 2023, China announced that work was underway to build new coal power plants with a combined capacity of 70.2 GW – more than 19-times that of the rest of the world combined. As a result, in 2024 China produced 476,896 million metric tons of coal, accounting for 52.6% of the world’s total.

This rise in coal production, however, coincides with a government drive to modernise the industry, aiming to make mining more intelligent, safer, more efficient, and more sustainable. To this end, last year China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) provided guidelines for the intelligent transformation of coal mines, promoting the use of AI and the latest wireless technologies. Looking ahead, the NEA is aiming to create a series of standards for the design, well construction, production, management, O&M, and evaluation of intelligent coal mines by 2030.

These efforts are already beginning to bear fruit. According to data from the 2025 National Energy Work Conference, intelligent production capacity now accounts for over half of China’s total coal production capacity, with nearly 1,000 mines having begun their ‘intelligent construction’ transformation.

A more intelligent future

The launch of China’s largest fleet of autonomous electric mining trucks, powered by 5G Advanced, is a significant milestone in the country’s journey towards smarter, safer, and greener coal mining. As intelligent mining becomes the norm, this initiative sets a powerful example of how traditional energy sectors can evolve for a more sustainable future.

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Author: Ernestro Casas -

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