NIO's Li Bin: In-House Shenji Chip to Power Vehicles and Embodied AI Industry

On March 11, Li Bin, founder of NIO, stated that he hopes to open up the company’s self-developed high-performance Shenji inference chip to more partners, extending its application across industries such as automotive and embodied intelligence. He also emphasized that NIO currently has no plans to further spin off any of its businesses. The day before, during an earnings call, Li revealed that Shenji Semiconductor—the chip subsidiary under NIO—has successfully taped out its second advanced AI chip targeting a broader customer base and is now entering mass production. In late February, Anhui Shenji, NIO’s chip-making subsidiary, completed its Series A funding round, raising over RMB 2.2 billion at a post-money valuation nearing RMB 10 billion. As China’s first company to develop and commercially deploy a 5nm automotive-grade chip at scale, Shenji’s “NX9031” chip boasts industry-leading performance—reportedly delivering the equivalent power of four conventional chips. Since entering production in 2024, over 150,000 units have been shipped and fully integrated across all NIO vehicle models.