21st Century Business Herald reporter Wu Xiaoyu, trainee reporter Jiao Wenjuan reports
21st Century Business Herald exclusively learned that recently, Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng held a staff meeting at Xiaopeng Motors' Shanghai R&D center. He stated that in order to become a global AI automotive company, the Shanghai R&D center should continue to leverage its advantages in talent, globalization, and AI technology. At present, the Xiaopeng chip team has a size of over 200 people and has settled in the Shanghai R&D center. Its Turing chip "will soon be launched".
Insiders close to Xiaopeng revealed that the Xiaopeng chip team has "recruited talents from multiple chip companies and is continuously recruiting". Michael is the head of the Xiaopeng chip team, and only the English name is displayed internally.
Xiaopeng's R&D departments include the Internet Center, the Data Intelligence Center, the Automatic Driving Center, etc. The main R&D center is in Guangzhou. The R&D departments involved in Shanghai include some employees of the Internet Center, the autonomous driving center and the chip team.
During the all staff meeting, He Xiaopeng introduced the reasons why Xiaopeng Motors has increased its layout in Shanghai: "Firstly, Shanghai is a talent hub where Xiaopeng can attract high-level professionals in fields such as software and hardware research and development, styling design, etc. Secondly, Shanghai has the advantage of globalization and can attract more global talents. Finally, Shanghai is a fertile ground for nurturing semiconductors and is conducive to the development of AI technology
In the opinion of the above-mentioned individuals, Xiaopeng chose to invest in chips in Shanghai this time, taking advantage of the gathering effect of Shanghai's new energy vehicle and Tier 1 suppliers, as well as the gathering of technology talents.
At present, the new energy supply chain in Shanghai has covered enterprises in the fields from three electric systems to vehicle research and development, from on-board chips to auto drive system, with world Tier 1 suppliers such as Bosch, Continental, Magna, ZF, and research and development centers of Mercedes Benz, BMW, Ideal, Great Wall and other brands taking root here. In addition, Shanghai also has vehicle production factories including SAIC Group and Tesla.
In a survey by KPMG, Shanghai surpassed cities such as New York and Tokyo and is "most likely to become the next Silicon Valley". In the field of chips, Shanghai has gathered a large number of integrated circuit design talents, and by 2023, its integrated circuit industry scale will reach 228.9 billion yuan, accounting for over 20% and ranking first in the country. Thanks to policy support and industrial cluster effects, a group of chip companies such as SMIC and Huahong have settled in Shanghai. In July of this year, Huawei's global R&D center was completed in Qingpu, Shanghai, and will undertake tasks such as chip design. At the end of August, Xiaopeng Motors held a housewarming ceremony at its Shanghai R&D center and officially settled in Zhangjiang Science Gate in Pudong New Area, Shanghai.
Apple's first M1 chip took three to four years from project approval to research and development, and Xiaopeng's journey of making "chips" was also less than four years.
At the end of 2020, Xiaopeng Motors began to form a chip team. At the Q4 2020 earnings conference call, He Xiaopeng stated that he will increase research and development investment in 2021, including hardware closely related to autonomous driving.
On August 23rd of this year, Xiaopeng's self-developed Turing chip was successfully taped out. Successful tape out means completing the first step of mass production. According to He Xiaopeng, the Turing chip is the world's first AI chip that can be applied to AI cars, AI robots, and flying cars simultaneously. It is specifically designed for L4 level autonomous driving research and development, and its computing power is three times that of mainstream intelligent driving chips.
Since Tesla first launched its self-developed autonomous driving chip HW3 in 2019, some new energy vehicle companies are gradually entering the stage of achieving results in chip investment. NIO is the earliest new force brand among the three "NIO Xiaoli" to form a chip team. Its chip team was established in the second half of 2020 and currently has a team size of over 800 people. The leader is from Huawei HiSilicon and reports directly to NIO's Vice President of Hardware, Bai Jian. In July of this year, NIO announced that its intelligent driving chip, the Shenji NX9031, had completed chip fabrication. Li Bin announced at the "2024 NIO Innovation and Technology Day" that the Shenji NX9031 is expected to debut on the NIO ET9 in the first quarter of next year.
The ideal of being cautious about the "chip" project in the early days started slightly later. Until 2022, Ideal established Sichuan Ideal Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., whose main business scope includes integrated circuit chip design and services. According to 36Kr's report, the ideal chip project codenamed "Schumacher" will be completed by the end of the year.
Geely directly established a company called Xinqing Technology in 2018, which focuses on designing car chips. In December 2021, Xinqing released its first chip - the intelligent cockpit chip "Longying One"; On March 20th this year, Xinqing and Yikatong jointly released the intelligent driving chip - Longying Intelligent Driving AD1000, which can support urban NOA with a single computing power. BYD's self-developed chips began with investment, and since 2021, BYD has been intensively investing in chip companies. It is reported that BYD started developing its own intelligent driving chips last year.
I think companies that aspire to make a difference in AI in the future may have non universal chips, such as proprietary AI chips like Xiaopeng Turing chips, "He Xiaopeng said in a media interview earlier. Intelligent competition has rapidly iterated, and in order to enter the finals, chips are the direction for car companies to expand their hard power. In addition to firmly grasping the "soul" in one's own hands, in the long run, mastering core chip technology is also a key step in reducing costs and increasing efficiency for automotive chips as a part of the supply chain.
The demand for visual chips in the future will continue to increase, "the aforementioned insider revealed. After nearly four years of accumulation, the chip arms race is entering the landing period.