On April 24, leading autonomous driving technology firm WeRide Inc. (NASDAQ: WRD, HKEX: 0800) and Lenovo Group announced a significant expansion of their global strategic collaboration. Building on existing cooperation, the two companies plan to deploy 200,000 autonomous vehicles, including Robotaxis, worldwide over the next five years, accelerating the large-scale commercial rollout of Level 4 autonomous driving technology. This enhanced partnership will accelerate the development of a global autonomous driving ecosystem, integrating key elements such as technology, computing power, and supply chain to improve industry-wide coordination efficiency.
WeRide is the autonomous driving company with the broadest global operational footprint, conducting research, testing, and operations in more than 40 cities across 12 countries. It has established a leading technology framework and mature commercialization capabilities. Lenovo, leveraging its advanced heterogeneous computing capabilities and worldwide manufacturing and supply chain system, will provide stable, scalable computing infrastructure and systems engineering support for large vehicle fleets. The deep integration of both parties' strengths will bridge critical links from cloud to vehicle, speeding up the comprehensive implementation of Physical AI in real-world mobility scenarios.
As the core foundation for large-scale Robotaxi deployment, the partners will jointly launch the HPC 3.0 high-performance computing platform in July 2025. This platform will be installed in WeRide's next-generation mass-produced Robotaxi model, GXR. HPC 3.0 is based on Lenovo's Level 4 autonomous driving domain controller AD1 and features a dual-core NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor configuration, delivering over 2000 TOPS of AI computing power. Through a highly integrated system architecture and automotive-grade design, HPC 3.0 establishes a fully redundant safety system for both hardware and software, capable of adapting to various complex road conditions and extreme scenarios globally. This advancement promotes the transition of Level 4 autonomous driving from engineering implementation to large-scale application.
While ensuring performance and safety, HPC 3.0 also initiates a cost revolution, reducing the cost of autonomous driving kits by 50% and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) over the platform's lifecycle by 84%. This effectively removes cost barriers to the large-scale commercial deployment of Robotaxis.
Dr. Han Xu, Founder and CEO of WeRide, stated, "Autonomous driving is entering a critical phase of commercial implementation, where industry competition is shifting from technological capability to cost efficiency and large-scale deployment capacity. This partnership enhancement will further consolidate the core advantages of both parties in autonomous driving systems and computing platforms, providing solid support for the planned global deployment of 200,000 autonomous vehicles over the next five years."
Xu Liang, Vice President of Lenovo Group and Head of Automotive Computing, commented, "Addressing the challenge of scalability in autonomous driving requires a robust computing foundation. Lenovo will continue to refine and iterate its automotive-grade computing platforms, leveraging our global supply chain and manufacturing strengths to provide replicable, scalable foundational capabilities for the industry. By deepening our collaboration with WeRide, we aim to accelerate progress and help Robotaxis achieve faster and more effective global deployment."
Moving forward, the two companies will continue to deepen their collaboration around Level 4 autonomous driving platforms, extending their partnership to include diverse product forms such as autonomous minibuses and autonomous sanitation vehicles. This expansion will promote the application of autonomous driving in urban transportation and public service scenarios, continually extending the boundaries of global deployment.
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