spying vs intelligence activity

spying and intelligence activity both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
spying	Yes	No	No	No
intelligence activity	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, intelligence activity is a hypernym of spying; that is, intelligence activity is a word with a broader meaning than spying:

spying: the act of keeping a secret watch for intelligence purposes
intelligence activity: the operation of gathering information about an enemy

Other hypernyms of spying include intelligence, intelligence operation.

spying (noun)	intelligence activity (noun)
the act of keeping a secret watch for intelligence purposes	the operation of gathering information about an enemy
keeping a secret or furtive watch
the act of detecting something; catching sight of something