On the afternoon of September 1st, the founding conference of Chongqing's Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Chip Industry Alliance was held at Wudu Hotel with great fanfare. Chongqing Vice Mayor Zheng Xiangdong attended the event and presented a plaque to Seres Group Co., Ltd. as the alliance's first chairman unit, marking a crucial step for Chongqing in promoting coordinated development of the intelligent connected new energy vehicle chip industry and building an autonomous and controllable industrial ecosystem.
As a major national automotive industry base, Chongqing has developed substantial industrial foundations in the intelligent connected new energy vehicle sector. Data shows that in 2024, Chongqing's automotive production exceeded 3 million vehicles, with new energy vehicles accounting for over 40% of total output, while the penetration rate of intelligent connected vehicles continues to rise. However, automotive chips serve as the "brain" and "central nervous system" of intelligent connected new energy vehicles, and their level of autonomous control directly relates to industrial security and core competitiveness.
Currently, the global automotive chip market still faces issues such as high-end chip import dependency, insufficient industrial chain coordination, and inadequate cross-sector integration. Chongqing's automotive industry also encounters challenges including chip supply stability and technology compatibility during its development process. The establishment of this intelligent connected new energy vehicle chip industry alliance represents Chongqing's targeted effort to address industrial pain points and seize development opportunities.
The alliance brings together diverse stakeholders including leading automakers such as Seres Group and Chang'an Automobile, chip design and manufacturing companies like Chongqing Chang'an Automobile Software Technology Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Ziguang Huashan Zhi'an Technology Co., Ltd., research institutions including Chongqing University and Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, as well as relevant industry associations and financial institutions.
With the mission of "collaborative innovation, ecosystem building, and industry empowerment," the alliance aims to establish a cross-sector cooperation platform connecting chips with vehicles, electronics with automotive, and materials with manufacturing, creating a complete industrial chain from chip research and development, design, and manufacturing to application verification.
At the founding conference, Vice Mayor Zheng Xiangdong emphasized that automotive chips are core to the high-quality development of the intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry. The alliance's establishment represents both a concrete implementation of the national "strengthen, supplement, and extend industrial chains" strategy and an inevitable choice for Chongqing to transform its automotive industry toward high-end, intelligent, and green development.
He stressed that alliance members should focus on industry demands, concentrate on key areas such as automotive-grade MCU chips, power semiconductors, autonomous driving chips, and vehicle networking chips, strengthen technological breakthroughs and achievement transformation, and break through technical and resource barriers. Meanwhile, they should establish regular communication mechanisms to promote joint research and development between chip companies and automakers, achieving precise matching between chip products and vehicle model requirements while avoiding "supply-demand mismatches" and "duplicate development" to improve overall industry efficiency.
A relevant official from Chongqing's Economic and Information Commission outlined subsequent support measures: comprehensive support for the alliance's role as an industrial coordination and innovation hub, including establishing special support funds to subsidize joint chip development projects and common technology platform construction by alliance companies. Additionally, they will build a "government-industry-academia-research-application" connection platform to promote cross-sector innovation integration among automotive, electronics, and materials industries, such as supporting chip companies to collaborate with electronic materials companies on high-purity wafer material development and jointly build chip testing and verification centers with automotive electronics companies to accelerate technology achievements from laboratories to industrial applications.
Furthermore, they will promote cooperation between the alliance and leading domestic companies in chip design, manufacturing, packaging, and testing, introducing high-quality resources to Chongqing to gradually form a complete industrial loop of "chip design—wafer manufacturing—packaging and testing—vehicle application," building an autonomous, controllable, secure, and reliable new energy vehicle chip industrial ecosystem.
As the alliance's first chairman unit, Seres Group's representative stated they will earnestly fulfill their chairman responsibilities and lead the formulation of alliance development plans and working mechanisms. In the future, they will collaborate with automakers like Chang'an Automobile to compile specific chip requirements for different vehicle models and intelligent functions, creating "demand lists" open to alliance chip companies. They will also open their vehicle testing platforms to provide real-vehicle verification scenarios for chip companies, helping chip products rapidly iterate and optimize.
"We hope to leverage the alliance's strength to enable Chongqing-made vehicles to use more 'Chongqing-made chips,' fundamentally solving the chip 'chokepoint' problem and ensuring Chongqing's automotive industry leads not only in quantity but also breaks through in quality," the representative said.
Currently, the global intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry is in a period of accelerated transformation, with chips as important carriers of core competitiveness becoming key focuses of regional industrial layouts. According to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers data, China's intelligent connected new energy vehicle chip market will exceed 150 billion yuan in 2025, but domestic autonomous chip market share remains below 20%, indicating enormous development potential.
The establishment of Chongqing's Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Chip Industry Alliance not only provides platform support for Chongqing's automotive industry to address chip shortcomings and forge chip advantages but also offers a "Chongqing model" for coordinated development of the national automotive chip industry.
As alliance work progresses, Chongqing will further integrate upstream and downstream industrial chain resources, promote deep integration of chip technology with vehicle manufacturing and cross-sector collaboration between electronics and automotive industries, accelerating the construction of an autonomous and controllable automotive chip industrial ecosystem and injecting "Chongqing strength" into the high-quality development of China's intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry.
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