China Automobile Forum | Li Shaohua: China will become the highland and gathering place for the development of automotive chips

From July 5 to July 7, 2023, the 13th China Automobile Forum hosted by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers was held in Jiading, Shanghai. With the theme of "New Era, New Mission and New Momentum - Helping to Build a Modern Industrial System", this forum has set up "1 closed-door summit + 1 conference forum + 16 theme forums + N releases" in total 18 meetings and several Activities such as release, display, and promotion aim to gather the strength of all parties, form a development consensus, and contribute the wisdom and strength of the automotive industry to the construction of a modern industrial system. Among them, Li Shaohua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, delivered a wonderful speech at the "Theme Forum Three: Core Road History and Collaborative Progress" held on the afternoon of July 6. The following content is a transcript of the live speech:

Dear leaders, distinguished guests, and friends from the media:

good afternoon everyone!

I am Li Shaohua from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. I am very happy that we are gathered here again at the annual Shanghai Forum to participate in the chip sub-forum "Chip Road Journey, Collaboration and Advancement". First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to all the leaders and guests attending this forum. A warm welcome!

Because I am also responsible for the automotive chip work in the association, I also take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to the government authorities, industry and enterprise leaders, all walks of life, and media friends who have long cared about and supported the development of the automotive chip industry!

We all know that the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that we should further promote the energy revolution, strengthen the construction of basic scientific and technological capabilities, and promote the development of high-end, intelligent, and green manufacturing. Gathering forces to carry out original and leading scientific and technological research, and resolutely win the battle against key core technologies. These proposals have pointed out the direction for the innovation and development of key core technologies in the automotive industry.

As the key core technology of the automotive industry, chips are inseparable from operating systems and application software, which together form the digital base of the value chain, ecological chain and innovation chain in the automotive industry chain.

In the current complex and severe international situation and environment, building a relatively complete automotive chip industry system is of great significance and has a great impact on the country's digital security, network security, information security and supply chain security in the development of automotive digitalization. Profound.

Facing a new round of transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry, I believe that the future development of China's automobile chips will have three characteristics. These are some preliminary ideas and are also put forward for your reference:

First, the development of China's automotive chip industry faces huge challenges, but also has greater opportunities.

At present, domestic automotive chip companies are still in the early stages of development, and there is still a clear gap with foreign automotive chip companies in the short term in terms of competitiveness in terms of scale, technology, and cost. As the production capacity of leading international automotive chip companies gradually recovers and they are now expanding production, domestic chip companies will face a big impact, but we must also see that China has the most dynamic and potential new energy vehicles. and the market for intelligent connected cars. The scale of this market will still maintain very rapid development in the future, which will provide automotive chips with larger and richer application scenarios and opportunities for technology iteration, and help domestic chips achieve technological breakthroughs and improve their performance. The industrial system provides important development opportunities and conditions.

Second, establishing a collaborative industrial ecosystem in multiple fields such as automotive chips, application software, and operating systems will be the only way forward for the transformation and upgrading of China's automotive industry.

As cars enter a new development stage of electrification, networking, and intelligence, software-defined cars have become a new development model for cars. In addition to chip hardware facilities, application software, and operating systems, the chip's hardware facilities, application software, and operating system also play a role in determining the level of intelligence of a car. We are pleased to see that domestic chip, operating system, and software companies, including car companies, have begun to develop collaboratively through joint development, mutual shareholding, joint ventures, and other methods.

The industrial ecology of software-defined automobiles is gradually taking shape, and in this development process, it will also accelerate the healthy and sustainable development of China's new energy and intelligent connected automobile industries.

Third, China will become the highland and gathering place for future automotive chip development.

Thanks to the policy guidance of new energy vehicles and the good foundation of Internet development, China has become the world's largest new energy vehicle market, and the penetration rate of L2 smart technology in new cars has reached 30%. The rapid development of electrification, intelligence, and connectivity has accelerated the improvement of China's automotive chip technology. On the other hand, the large domestic market requires a localized supply chain layout, which will also promote China to become an important player in automotive chip technology and production capacity. Gathering place.

At present, the automotive chip field is facing the reconstruction of new supply chains and industrial chains. The rapid development of new automotive technologies has broken down the original technical barriers. Software and hardware have become a main body, determining the core technical level of future automobiles. The electronic motor architecture of automobiles is also evolving to be more centralized, and automobile chips will become high-end. I believe that innovation, collaboration, and integration will become the key and core of the development of automotive chips. Innovation will help us achieve technological breakthroughs in various fields and enhance the core competitiveness of the industry.

A good ecology will help the healthy and sustainable development of the entire industry chain. I think there are three suggestions for the development of the automotive chip industry, which are not too mature:

The first is the collaborative model of innovative cars and chip software.

At present, the connection between our software companies, chip companies and automobile companies is still relatively loose. In the future, we must promote cross-industry integration and mutual empowerment, encourage vehicle manufacturers to drive demand, and parts manufacturers to implement industrial research and development, so as to achieve independent domestic production. The application of operating system software chips must also focus on underlying technologies to promote the ecological integration of in-car control and intelligent operating systems, and focus on low-carbon technologies to develop the correlation and ecological synergy of off-car, car cloud, and vehicle-road systems. The upstream and downstream of the industrial chain must unify consensus and focus on independent and controllable co-construction of ecology and cooperative supply to form the advantage of ecological competitiveness.

The second is to optimize and improve the internal and external environment for sustainable industrial development.

The government will play a very important role here, and the government must play a major role in macro-control and service industries, strengthen policy guidance, establish unified technical specifications and standards for automotive-grade chips, and accelerate the overall industrial chain layout of automotive chips. , guide and encourage foreign chip companies to build, R&D, production, packaging and testing bases in China, maintain market order, and severely crack down on illegal market behaviors such as hoarding. We all know that strong policies and an orderly market environment will become An important guarantee for the development of the automotive chip industry.

The third is to give full play to China’s institutional advantages.

By promoting the resource aggregation and in-depth integration of the innovation chain, industrial chain, capital chain, and talent chain, we will accelerate the implementation of a number of strategic, overall, and forward-looking national major science and technology projects, enhance our independent innovation capabilities, and improve the efficiency of science and technology investment. Deepen the reform of the mechanism for allocating science and technology funds, stimulate innovation vitality, strengthen the status of enterprises as the main body of scientific and technological innovation, give full play to the leading and supporting role of scientific and technological backbone enterprises, adhere to the rational layout of industries, standardize the order of market competition, comprehensively sort out needs from the perspective of talents, and focus on cutting-edge Knowledge is transformed into industries. Correspondingly, an industry-wide talent training system should be established to form a closed loop of the industry-university-research system.

Dear leaders, experts, and business representatives:

The "14th Five-Year Plan" is a critical period for the development of new energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles in my country. The development of my country's automotive chip industry has both bright prospects and a long way to go. Let us work together and move forward hand in hand to create a new situation in industrial development.