The joint venture of Volkswagen Group and Horizon Robotics Project has ushered in huge funding and strong talent support. Su Jing, the former director of Huawei Autonomous Driving Solutions (ADS) business unit, would join the company.
It was reported that on October 13, Volkswagen Group (Chinese: 大众汽车) announced it would establish a joint venture with Horizon Robotics (Chinese: 地平线) and invest approximately CNY 17 billion (USD 2.3 billion). It would take a 60% stake in a new venture, with the transaction to be completed in the first half of 2023. As for the core team leaders of the joint venture, Volkswagen Group-backed software company CARIAD would appoint the CEO, and Horizon Robotics would appoint the CTO.
With the formation of a joint venture between Volkswagen and Horizon, Su Qing(苏箐), a former head of Huawei's (Chinese: 华为) intelligent driving product division and a well-known expert in the autonomous driving field, would join the company and likely be the head of a certain technology division. It is learned that Su Jing was the core technical backbone of Huawei, served as the chief architect of Huawei terminals, and led the development of Huawei DaVinci AI Chip Architecture. But he left Huawei last December and joined CARIAD Co., a software subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group founded in China.
The layout of intelligence and electrification is an inevitable trend for multinational automakers, especially in China market. Before Volkswagen Group's USD 2.3 billion partnership with Horizon Robotics, General Motors had already invested USD 300 million in the Chinese autonomous driving company Momenta. Obviously, in the future, the majority of global car manufacturers will need to be deeply tied to a local partner in autonomous driving technology on China market.
The huge investment, overlaid with key talents and potential partners, is clearly a solemn announcement of the car giant's participation in the intelligent race in the Chinese market.