Automotive-Grade Chips Enter Era of System-Level Competition, Reshaping Industry Landscape Through Intelligent and Electric Transformation

The automotive industry is accelerating its convergence toward intelligent and electric mobility, driving automotive-grade chips to evolve from traditional basic components into core capability platforms for smart vehicles. Chip functionality now extends far beyond control and execution—computing power, real-time processing capabilities, communication performance, and functional safety levels have become critical determinants of a vehicle’s overall intelligence. In the domain of intelligent cockpits, China’s passenger vehicle cockpit domain controller chip market continued to grow steadily from January to May 2026. Qualcomm led the market with 2.707 million units shipped, capturing a 71.8% share; Huawei ranked second with 277,000 units shipped and a 7.3% market share. Companies such as SiEngine Tech, AMD, and MediaTek are also gradually entering the market. The competitive focus has shifted from hardware specifications to AI computing power, software ecosystems, system compatibility, and mass-production readiness. The widespread adoption of advanced intelligent driving assistance features is imposing higher demands on chips. Industry attention has moved beyond raw TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second) metrics toward computing efficiency, algorithm compatibility, functional safety, and hardware-software co-optimization. Meanwhile, foundational components—including MCUs, power semiconductors, communication chips, and power management ICs—are gaining increased importance in electric drive systems and body electronics. As electronic/electrical (E/E) architectures evolve toward centralized and domain-fused topologies, competition in automotive-grade chips has expanded into systemic dimensions such as chip architecture design, software ecosystem development, supply chain collaboration, and scalable delivery capabilities. Chinese domestic companies, leveraging the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, are accelerating their strategic deployments in autonomous driving, intelligent cockpits, and power semiconductors. Through agile development models, rapid response mechanisms, and deep partnerships with OEMs, they are continuously enhancing technological maturity and market influence. Going forward, competition in automotive-grade chips will center on building an integrated capability system encompassing chip design, software development, algorithm optimization, ecosystem construction, and large-scale deployment. Enterprises with comprehensive technical portfolios and strong industrial synergy will gain a decisive edge in the era of intelligent vehicles. The 8th edition of the relevant 2026 awards program focuses on innovative technologies and practical applications in the automotive-grade chip sector, covering control, computing, power, sensing, memory, communication, power management, information security, and driver ICs. Evaluation criteria emphasize achievements in chip architecture, performance optimization, automotive qualification certifications, engineering implementation, mass-production readiness, and supply chain collaboration. Submitted case studies indicate that high-performance computing, AI acceleration, and hardware-software co-design have emerged as the primary directions of chip innovation.