Will there be a Xiaomi equivalent for ATM tech?
The inaugural Airspace Asia Pacific took place in Hong Kong, China in December. It was a vibrant marketplace of ideas with the meeting of minds between ANSP policy makers, operational practitioners across the region, and the ATM tech industry. Many at the event were familiar bastions of the ATM tribe or keepers of the ATM orthodoxy. What struck me the most is that there is an opportunity to broaden participation from new innovative players challenging the status quo.
Not so long ago, Xiaomi was just an outsider of the smartphone and electric vehicle business. Xiaomi was founded only in 2010 as a software company. In a short few years, it has disrupted the smartphone market with very low pricing. It now ranks as the world’s third most popular smartphone brand, and on past occasions, it has even out-performed Apple in sales.
Xiaomi did not stop at smartphones. It expanded into smart TVs, wearables, home appliances. In 2021, it started building electric vehicles and managed to unveil its first car, the SU7 sedan, in just three years. Xiaomi’s electric vehicle business was an instant success. Its YU7 SUV launched in June 2025, received 300,000 orders within the first hour of sale online.
An ATM industry veteran once told me that the mass market for digital technologies does not provide many lessons for the ATM business. Or does it?
At its core, future ATM is about airspace capacity growth through digital infrastructure, hyper-connected communications, and data-centric processes. At the CANSO Asia Pacific ATM technology retreat conducted as a follow-up to the CANSO Asia Pacific ATM white paper, digital information management from end to end was the dominant theme. Digitalisation of ATM has made new business models viable.
Looking at the state of ATM in the region, there is clearly a yawning gap between the need for cost-effective solutions for modernisation and what on the market. What is needed is not necessarily clunky capital equipment, but digital service that is fit-for-purpose which all can afford, and not just the privileged few.
In the Zen classic by Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, he writes, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.” Hence, outsiders may see what we are blind to.
A Xiaomi equivalent in ATM will be a nationality-agnostic, digital tech company that meets the no-frills demands of the average ANSPs and fulfils the minimum implementation path of the Global Air Navigation Plan, at low or near-cost pricing. The fact that an Asian ANSP has developed an ATFM system in-house, shared with other ANSPs, and continued to upgrade the system suggests that such a possibility is not far-fetched.
That said, it is true that the entry barrier to the ATM business is higher than smartphones and electric vehicles. The greatest barrier is the mystique of ATM – the abstract idea of safety, reliability, familiarity, and other intangibles that only come from a proven track record. This makes it difficult for new start-up entrants. It psychologically tethers us to the tried and tested. This status quo bias kills innovations and is an insiders’ curse.
Strangely, certification of ATM systems may help outsiders break into the market. Such certification which may include design or production organisation approval, which until recently is non-existent, is double-edged. At first blush, it may seem like a regulatory hurdle, but if the barrier to new entrants to the ATM tech sector is the difficulty to demystify the intangible, then certification can make it easier for new entrants to openly prove themselves.
The driver for ATM transformation may well come from Advanced Air Mobility, a sector much more sexy than ATM, that has attracted talents and investments. The low-altitude economy is experiencing aggressive growth in certain places. Outsiders like Xpeng, known for electric vehicles, are venturing into flying cars. Digitalisation and seamless information exchange can drive a great convergence of related operations, including ATM. With progressive regulations, go-getting tech companies, and deep pockets, growth will accelerate. When the application of technology meets economics, a powerful change can happen.
We have not fully addressed the question whether there will be a Xiaomi equivalent for ATM tech. Perhaps this topic deserves more than a simplistic rant. But the question is why we have such a question in the first place. The dots are waiting to be connected.
