With the use of digital tools like the MAPZhinong app, precision advise, and remote monitoring services, Syngenta Group's Modern Agriculture Platform (MAP) in China expanded to more than 100 million hectares of farmland in more than 40 countries in April 2024.Its recent growth highlights the widespread deployment in China, where farmers use satellite, IoT, and sensor networks to obtain AI-driven agronomic suggestions, traceability systems, and field diagnostics. As a top mobile precision-ag app in China, MAPZhinong was honored with a Red Dot Design Award in March 2025.
In the meantime, XAG, the top provider of ag-drones and smart farms in China, has developed its software stack into a farm management software as a service (SaaS) platform that is closely linked with its analytics, IoT, and drone ecosystem.By late 2022, post-2020 investment resulted in full-stack smart-farm products, including weather forecasts, IoT field sensors, drone-based crop data, and remote scheduling tools. By collaborating with Planet Labs in March 2025, Syngenta significantly increased MAP's data capabilities by giving Cropwise users access to daily 3 m resolution satellite images for better field-level intelligence.
These advancements demonstrate China's shift to digital agriculture: Syngenta and XAG serve as the backbone of the country's agricultural software innovation, combining artificial intelligence, remote sensing, and data-driven decision-making.With XAG expanding its service to millions of hectares and Syngenta's Shanghai innovation center scheduled to open by 2028, China's smart-farm software ecosystem is gaining traction on a global scale.
