160,000 cars have used China's "first AI chip for automotive regulations", and mass production is accelerating

Jia Haonan and Jin Lei sent this article from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

At the Shanghai Auto Show, a number of autonomous driving suppliers were vying for the "admission ticket" for smart electric vehicles.

Against this backdrop, Horizon Robotics , a well-known player in China's automotive AI chips , has attracted more attention and has been highly sought after.

How to say?

The most direct one is that Changan UNI-K, which fully unleashes the autonomous driving capabilities of the Journey 2 chip , will soon be mass-produced and delivered.

On the other hand, GAC, Chery, Dongfeng Lantu, SAIC Zhiji... continue to have new models confirmed to use Horizon Intelligent Driving Solution :

Last year, Horizon Robotics officially announced that it had shipped more than 160,000 automotive chips , entering the stage of "land grabbing".

Within just a few days of the auto show, Horizon Robotics also announced intensive cooperation with multiple manufacturers. Among them, in addition to car manufacturers, there are more players in various links of the automotive industry chain.

Horizon has even transcended its identity as a chip company and released a full-scenario intelligent vehicle solution.

So, what is the current development of China's first mass-produced AI chip for automotive applications ?

What did Horizon do?

To sum it up in three words, it is fast , accurate and ruthless .

It is said that a smart car is four wheels plus a computer, so the on-board smart chip is comparable to its core engine.

In order to play its role, a key and necessary prerequisite is to get on the bus .

Horizon's speed of "getting on board" is fast, really fast .

This may be the most direct feeling of the outside world about the horizon.

In just the few days since the opening of the Shanghai Auto Show, news of "official announcements of cooperation with many car companies and Tier 1" has come one after another.

For car companies:

• Horizon Robotics signed a strategic cooperation agreement with JAC Group, and its new car Sihao QX will be equipped with the Journey 2 chip.

• Horizon and Ideal have reached in-depth cooperation; the two parties have created a high-performance, open and easy-to-use intelligent driving and intelligent interactive computing platform based on the Journey series of chips.

• SAIC Maxus' latest concept car is based on the Journey chip and develops advanced intelligent assisted driving solutions adapted to Chinese scenarios.

• Dongfeng Lantu FREE also demonstrated its active night vision driving system based on the Horizon Journey 2 chip at the Shanghai Auto Show.

In the Tier 1 camp:

• Horizon Robotics has teamed up with Continental to establish a smart driving joint venture to jointly develop advanced driver assistance systems.

• Asia Pacific Holdings will use Horizon's technology platform to create smart driving products.

• Neusoft RichAuto will integrate its self-developed full-stack autonomous driving software with Horizon's chip platform to promote the mass production of the solution.

In addition to these, ADAYO Huayang, Desay SV Automotive, which makes body electronic systems, and semiconductor company Will Semiconductor have all reached strategic cooperation with Horizon Robotics.

The 10-day Shanghai Auto Show is still going on, but Horizon is laying the foundation for "quick entry" at an average rate of one order per day .

Moreover, judging from the manufacturers that have reached cooperation, autonomous driving software suppliers, Internet of Vehicles companies, electronic architecture parts suppliers, and even traditional auto parts manufacturers are not left out.

But in addition to speed, there is a second very intuitive feeling: accuracy .

What Horizon has to do is very precise, that is mass production and delivery .

The most eye-catching event was during the Shanghai Auto Show, when Horizon and Changan Automobile unveiled for the first time the UNI-K autonomous driving assistance mass production black technology.

It is understood that the capabilities demonstrated by UNI-K are high-level autonomous driving assistance and in-vehicle intelligent interaction systems equipped with Horizon Robotics' Journey 2 chip .

This is not a PPT that Horizon Robotics brought out for the auto show, but the first public unveiling means the launch:

This function will be officially put into mass production in the near future .

And it's not just verbal talk, but the "basic skills demonstration" has already been achieved.

Last year, Changan Automobile launched the first model in the UNI series, UNI-T, which is equipped with the intelligent cockpit NPU computing platform based on the Journey 2 chip.

UNI-T took advantage of the opportunity to win a "national first" :

The first mass-produced model independently developed based on China's AI chip.

Since its launch in June last year, cumulative sales have exceeded 100,000 units .

In addition to Changan Automobile, Chery's pure electric SUV Ant is also equipped with the Journey 2 chip.

In this car, Journey 2 helps Chery Ant achieve L2+ level driving assistance functions.

It is understood that Horizon's automotive chip shipments in 2020 have reached 160,000 .

During the Shanghai Auto Show, Dongfeng Lantu FREE, JAC Sihao QX, GAC Trumpchi GS4 Plus, SAIC Maxus MIFA concept car and other models announced that they will be equipped with Horizon Journey chips. It is reported that more models equipped with Horizon Journey series chips will be released in succession.

It seems that it is indeed fast and accurate enough .

But the reason why Horizon can achieve these two points is that there is a more important point behind it, that is, it is ruthless enough .

This kind of "ruthlessness" should refer to the ruthlessness of technical strength .

Take Journey 2 as an example. Since its launch in 2019, it has been crowned with the halo of "China's first automotive-grade AI chip" .

And in just half a year, it achieved pre-installed mass production .

As time goes by, major car companies have chosen this chip for their cars, which shows its performance strength.

Not only that, Horizon's technological strength is also reflected in the iteration of chips.

Less than half a year after the mass production of Journey 2 , Journey 3 was launched , with further improvements in performance.

Let’s not talk about performance data first, let’s test it on the road directly!

In actual tests with the Journey 3, the test vehicle was able to easily handle long tunnels, large-curvature curves, and merging into and out of ramps.

△ See the end of the article for the full video

It is understood that this test ride car is equipped with Horizon Matrix Pilot assisted driving solution, based on Journey 3. Through 6 high-resolution cameras, it can achieve a 360-degree perception range of up to 250 meters.

According to Horizon's plan, the next generation of Journey 5 will be officially released in 2021, and the more powerful Journey 6 will be launched later .

Why Horizon?

How can an AI chip company leverage the entire smart car industry chain ?

To answer this question, we need to first know what car manufacturers want.

In a series of signings by Horizon, it is clear that car companies have a very urgent demand for intelligence .

Why?

Since the beginning of 2020, Tesla's market value has skyrocketed, even exceeding the total of several traditional auto giants.

Compared to Toyota, which took 60 years to become the No. 1 automobile company in terms of market value, it took Tesla only 17 years from its founding to become the king.

In the eyes of Wall Street analysts who have driven its market value to soar, Tesla is the iPhone of the century-old automotive industry - intelligence is the core key.

Therefore, in the face of the "intelligent" trend, problems also arise:

How can automobile manufacturers seize this wave of dividends?

The "2019 China Automobile Consumption Trend Report" (jointly released by ByteDance-Automotive Data Strategy Research Institute and China Automobile Dealers Association) shows that the attention paid to automobile intelligence has increased by 30.8% year-on-year compared to 2018, and the attention paid to automobile networking has increased by 52.3% year-on-year.

The report also shows that consumers have a high demand for intelligent driving assistance configuration/intelligent safety configuration, which is very attractive in the purchasing decision-making process.

It can be seen that automobile intelligence is a clear trend, and the market is driving companies to make corresponding choices.

So what are the demands and goals of each car company?

The UNI series of Changan, a traditional car manufacturer, aims to create high-end technology mass-produced cars . SAIC Maxus, in cooperation with Horizon, aims to "target advanced intelligent assisted driving solutions for Chinese scenarios."

As for the new force Ideal, it will use the Journey series to create a high-performance, open and easy-to-use smart driving and intelligent interactive computing platform.

In a nutshell, what car companies are looking for is advanced intelligence and a safe and stable supply of chips.

Horizon's chip, or more accurately, an intelligent solution based on chips, can precisely meet the needs.

Journey 2 was officially released in 2019. With typical technical advantages, it can provide more than 4TOPS (1TOPS=1 trillion calculations per second) of equivalent computing power, with a typical power consumption of only 2 watts. Combined with efficient algorithms, the number of frames that can be processed by each TOPS of computing power can reach more than 10 times that of a GPU with the same computing power.

But what the outside world tends to overlook is that Horizon Robotics was founded in 2015, and before launching mature products, it made complex and detailed planning for the underlying chip architecture and technical routes.

Common smart car chips, taking Tesla FSD and Qualcomm 820A as examples, one is responsible for autonomous driving and the other is responsible for the smart cockpit, and they cannot be connected.

The uniqueness of Horizon's products lies in its focus on AI accelerated computing, which allows it to achieve multiple functions with one chip, including autonomous driving and intelligent interaction.

Changan UNI-T, which first launched Journey 2 in 2020, used Journey 2 as the core foundation of the smart cockpit.

This year, Journey 2 has completed its "complete" evolution. On UNI-T and the newly launched UNI-K, Journey 2 serves as the brain of both the smart cockpit and autonomous driving.

What are the advantages of this technical solution?

Generally speaking, an ordinary passenger car uses about 50-150 highly integrated chips, which are responsible for autonomous driving, communication, entertainment, body control, driving signals, etc.

The platform-based chip can be diversified through software to cover the application needs of many different scenarios.

For manufacturers, whether they are car manufacturers, software suppliers, or electronic control system manufacturers, there is no need to make a customized chip for every detailed problem. The R&D costs can be shared through a wider range of application scenarios.

Openness is another major feature of the flexible chip architecture.

At the beginning of the year, Horizon Robotics launched a new generation of Tiangong Kaiwu AI development platform based on existing algorithm capabilities and tool chains, covering three functional modules: Model Zoo, AI chip tool chain (AI Toolchain) and AI application development middleware (AI Express).

In the model warehouse, Horizon has opened up multiple sets of classic product algorithm models and reference algorithms.

In terms of the tool chain, Horizon has opened up a full set of tools covering the entire AI development process.

For example, visual tuning and debugging tools, rich algorithm samples, etc., the purpose is to help customers develop customized functions efficiently, easily and flexibly based on their own needs.

Taking Changan’s new car UNI-K as an example, combined with the AI ​​computing power and algorithm technology points of Journey 2, Changan Automobile can develop more complex customized functions based on its own needs, quickly launch new functions for users, and realize upgrades from interactive objects, interactive methods to interactive logic.

The third major feature is automation .

This is also one of the main reasons why Horizon can quickly iterate and update its algorithms and products.

At this point, Horizon's weapon is Horizon AIDI™️ - an end-to-end cloud-integrated data closed-loop development platform .

The platform replaces pure manual labeling and comparison, and instead uses algorithms to automatically mine data, allowing model iteration, software integration, regression testing, etc. to be automated.

Moreover, this set of processes and "right to speak" are not exclusive to Horizon, but are jointly built with customers.

The above is Horizon’s customized “family package” of chips + solutions, which can be said to accurately meet the needs of car companies.

But in the series of official signing news, what did the non-car company Tier 1 partners see in Horizon?

In fact, it is very simple. The core is still the open technical features of Horizon Robotics. The electronic control, entertainment, communication modules, etc. provided by Tier 1 can be connected to the Journey computing platform at a relatively low cost.

Moreover, as the "first chip in automotive mass production", Horizon Robotics has been mass-produced in a large number of vehicle models and has been recognized by the market. When suppliers access Horizon Robotics solutions, they have already gained potential customers.

So it is not difficult to understand why Tier 1 partners are interested in Horizon.

It’s time to reassess the horizon

For autonomous driving, there are only two routes at present: "self-research" and "supplier".

Car manufacturers develop their own autonomous driving solutions and directly provide them to car owners, such as Tesla and Xpeng.

Suppliers, such as Apollo and Huawei, provide technical solutions to car manufacturers.

Horizon Robotics has now expanded beyond its role as a single "chip supplier" and joined the battle for "complete vehicle intelligence."

At the Shanghai Auto Show, Horizon Robotics not only signed contracts but also released its complete vehicle intelligent solutions, which include three sets of solutions:

Horizon Matrix® solution focuses on autonomous driving.
Horizon Halo ^TM solution focuses on in-vehicle intelligent interaction.
In-vehicle and out-of-vehicle linkage focuses on defining the next generation of intelligent driving.

The core Horizon Matrix provides a full range of autonomous driving solutions, including:

Horizon Matrix Mono Assisted Driving Solution
Horizon Matrix Pilot Driving Solution
Horizon Matrix FSD Fully Autonomous Driving Solution

The three solutions are gradually evolving to form an autonomous driving solution from standard to advanced versions. The solution has four characteristics: high cost performance, high reliability, high computing power utilization, and flexible cooperation methods.

Horizon Matrix Pilot is an intelligent driving solution based on Horizon Journey 3 and is at the L2+ level.

Its perception solution includes 6 cameras and 5 millimeter-wave radars.

Horizon Matrix Pilot integrates a vision-based high-precision positioning algorithm that can achieve lane-level positioning accuracy without a high-precision positioning box.

Horizon Matrix FSD is based on the upcoming Journey 5 chip, and is officially positioned as a fully autonomous driving solution .

Horizon Matrix FSD can support 12-channel camera solutions and can use lidar as an option to achieve point-to-point autonomous driving without takeover, urban parking and automatic car calling, and autonomous driving covering all scenarios.

As for the Horizon Halo in-vehicle intelligent interaction solution, the current Halo 2 is based on the Journey 2, and the future Halo 3 will be based on the Journey 3, supporting all-round perception and interaction between the front and back seats, inside and outside the car, and vision and voice.

The ultimate goal of intelligent driving is to link the inside and outside of the car and co-drive the human and the machine.

Based on a unified chip architecture and a complete intelligent driving and intelligent interaction solution, the inside-outside linkage can integrate the triple capabilities of outside-inside visual perception, inside-inside visual perception, and inside-inside voice perception to quickly connect the inside-outside functions of the car.

Horizon also provides automakers with easy-to-use tools to support flexible development of customized applications and create unique interactive scene experiences.

So if we connect the dots and take a comprehensive look, Horizon , as an AI chip company , is actually not fully reflected.

What is the horizon?

From product plans and support from various industry strategic investors to frequent collaborations at the Shanghai Auto Show, it is clear that another horizon is being drawn.

This is a horizon standing in front of the surging wave of automotive intelligence, and a horizon that provides platform-based and scalable full-vehicle intelligent solutions.

More specifically, there are three levels of horizon:

The first is similar to Nvidia, which only provides chip hardware to customers.

The second is to provide customers with complete solutions including chips and algorithms based on customer needs.

The third is to cooperate with customers. Horizon will provide chips and tool chains, and work with customers to develop and polish perception algorithms to create complete solutions.

So you think the horizon is on the first layer, but in fact the complete horizon now has three layers.

It's time to reassess the horizon.