China has released its first mandatory national standard for autonomous driving systems.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the standard Intelligent and Connected Vehicle — Safety Requirements of Combined Driver Assistance System (GB 44721-2026) will come into force on July 1, 2027.

The standard applies to Class M and Class N vehicles equipped with level 3 or level 4 autonomous driving systems, excluding autonomous parking systems.

It requires potential safety hazards of autonomous driving systems to be reduced at the source. Vehicle manufacturers are specified to set up and enforce safety safeguards covering four dimensions: safety policy, risk management, safety assurance and safety improvement. These measures include relevant simulation, closed-site and road tests throughout the research and validation phase of autonomous driving systems.

The standard also mandates improved performance when the system carries out dynamic driving tasks to guarantee operational safety. It lays down specifications for human-machine interaction and user notifications to prevent misuse or abusive use.

The activation and deactivation of the autonomous driving system must be carried out safely, with clear guidelines for indicators and alerts for system states including standby, active and deactivated modes.

Particularly, Level 3 autonomous driving systems have to be fitted with a function that monitors the driver's takeover readiness, so the human driver can take over vehicle control once an intervention alert pops up.

The MIIT said that it will tighten market access supervision for intelligent and connected-vehicle products, speed up the industrial scale application of autonomous driving technology, and steer high-quality growth of China's intelligent and connected vehicle industry.