Leapmotor Mass-Produces China-Made AI Driving Chip Lingxin 01; Zhu Jiangming Says Current ADAS Chips Are Overpowered

On June 16, Zhu Jiangming, founder of Leapmotor, stated during a media briefing that Leapmotor is the first new energy vehicle (NEV) company to launch an in-house developed chip. The Lingxin 01 chip, co-developed with Dahua Technology, is China’s first automotive-grade AI intelligent driving chip with full independent intellectual property rights. It was unveiled in 2020 and mass-produced in 2021 aboard the Leapmotor C11 model. Built on a 28nm process, the chip features a CPU based on Pingtouge Semiconductor’s “Xuantie C860” processor and integrates an 8-core neural network processing unit with a maximum clock speed of 1GHz. It supports multi-chip scaling via PCIe interconnect technology to boost computing power. Zhu noted that the performance of current AI intelligent driving chips has become excessive relative to actual needs, with annual market demand reaching 10–20 million units and a wide variety of available options. He emphasized that the industry should return to fundamentals and focus on core components and whole-vehicle innovations that truly create value. Regarding whether Leapmotor will continue developing its own chips, he said the company will prioritize investment in core components and whole-vehicle product innovation until it achieves sufficient scale.