Chinese Online Retailer JD.com Is Developing Heavy-Duty Delivery Drones

China's Shaanxi province is famous for being the start of the Silk Road, an ancient trade network where silk and spices were transported by camel across the Asian continent. Soon, the central Chinese province will be recognized for a different form of transport. Chinese e-commerce provider JD.com said Monday it is developing heavy-duty drones capable of delivering payloads weighing one ton or more, which it plans to deploy in Shaanxi. JD, China's No. 2 e-commerce company after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., in 2016 started delivering small packages via drone as a way to bring online orders to shoppers in remote rural villages. Its fleet of about 30 drones have already been bringing shipments to customers in the remote areas of Beijing, and in Sichuan, Jiangsu, Shaanxi and Guizhou provinces, which are home to more than 230 million people.