Toward Integrated Air-Ground Computing and Communications: A Synergy of Computing Power Networks and Low-Altitude Economy Network

TL;DR

The paper investigates integrating Low-Altitude Economy (LAE) with Computing Power Networks (CPN) to overcome limitations in mobility, sensing, and static deployment. It proposes an air-ground collaborative framework built on an agentification paradigm to jointly schedule computing and communications across cloud, edge, ground, and aerial nodes, supported by a duplex MCP mechanism. A case study demonstrates substantial improvements in task success rates and hotspot resilience when LAE and CPN collaborate, compared to isolated deployments. The study highlights future directions including digital twins, security/privacy, and energy-aware design to enable practical deployment of integrated air-ground computing and communication systems.

Abstract

With the rapid rise of the Low-Altitude Economy (LAE), the demand for intelligent processing and real-time response in services such as aerial traffic, emergency communications, and environmental monitoring continues to grow. Meanwhile, the Computing Power Network (CPN) aims to integrate global computing resources and perform on-demand scheduling to efficiently handle services from diverse sources. However, it is limited by static deployment and limited adaptability. In this paper, we analyze the complementary relationship between LAE and CPN and propose a novel air-ground collaborative intelligent service provision with an agentification paradigm. Through synergy between LAE and CPNs, computing and communication services are jointly scheduled and collaboratively optimized to enhance the execution efficiency of low-altitude services and improve the flexibility of CPNs. It also integrates LAE's strengths in aerial sensing, mobile coverage, and dynamic communication links, forming a cloud-edge-air collaborative framework. Hence, we review the characteristics and limitations of both LAE and CPN and explore how they can cooperate to overcome these limitations. Then we demonstrate the flexibility of the integrated CPN and LAE framework through a case study. Finally, we summarize the key challenges in constructing an integrated air-ground computing and communication system and discuss future research directions toward emerging technologies.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: LAE features wide-area mobility and real-time sensing capabilities, enabling flexible coverage and information acquisition in dynamic environments, while CPN provides powerful global computing scheduling and intelligent optimization capabilities, enabling unified management and intelligent coordination across multi-domain resources. They can leverage their unique capabilities to assist each other.
• Figure 2: The agentification approach constructs an architecture that integrates perception, planning, action, and reflection capabilities. By treating both LAE and CPN nodes as autonomous, collaborative intelligent agents, this paradigm breaks down the operational silos and inherent communication friction between these two heterogeneous systems.
• Figure 3: Task success rate versus task count
• Figure 4: Task success rate versus movement of hotspot area