On September 11th, at the 2025 Inclusion·The Bund Conference, Horizon Robotics and Hello Group officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement. Based on the operating scenarios and demands of Robotaxis, the two parties will leverage their respective technological advantages to jointly develop intelligent driving technologies featuring ultra-low cost, high safety, high reliability, and high availability, realize the commercial success of Robotaxis, and jointly create an industry benchmark product. This cooperation marks a key step in Horizon Robotics' forward-looking strategic layout and signifies that the company's intelligent driving technology foundation fully empowers scenarios spanning the entire spectrum from L2 to L4.
It has become an industry consensus that intelligent driving is accelerating its leap from L2 to L4. As one of the important applications and commercial scenarios of L4-level autonomous driving, Robotaxis boast broad market prospects and development potential. According to a UBS report, by the late 2030s, the potential scale of China's Robotaxi service market will reach USD 183 billion, with approximately 4 million Robotaxis put into operation nationwide by then.
In accordance with the agreement, the two parties will cooperate on the full-stack L4 intelligent driving solutions and technologies, including L4-level autonomous driving software algorithms, vehicle-grade domain controllers and supporting hardware, and complete end-to-end system integration and mass production verification. This solution will serve as the core software and hardware system for Hello Group's Robotaxi fleet. The two parties will jointly ensure the high quality and high standards of the technical solution, commit to building a safe, reliable, intelligent and convenient future mobility service, and provide users with a cutting-edge autonomous driving travel experience filled with technological sense.
As a leading intelligent driving technology enterprise in China, Horizon Robotics has built a technology foundation adapted to the implementation needs of Robotaxis by virtue of its accumulation of full-stack software and hardware technologies and mass production experience. In terms of computing power, the Journey 6P can provide powerful computing power of 560 TOPS, and can even achieve combined computing power at the kilowatt-TOPS level through its unique clip-on modular system, meeting the needs of multi-sensor fusion and large-model applications. In terms of algorithms, Horizon Robotics' HSD (Horizon Urban Driving) system, built based on a one-stage end-to-end architecture, delivers a top-tier human-like driving experience. The Journey 6P and HSD can realize system-level software-hardware collaborative optimization, which not only ensures high computing power redundancy but also simplifies the system structure, effectively shortening the development cycle and reducing integration costs. This will greatly optimize the cost of the core software and hardware system for Robotaxis and lay a solid foundation for commercial implementation.
Hello Group's Robotaxi business is strongly empowered by investors such as Hello Group, Ant Group, and CATL. It not only has strong financial support but also owns a large user base, mature operational experience, and a rich service ecosystem, enabling it to efficiently support large-scale commercial applications. At the event, Hello Group's first pre-installed mass-produced Robotaxi model "HR1" (Hello Robot 1) made its global debut. The company also announced its plan to achieve mass production of pre-installed models by 2026, covering more than 10 cities (with the first international city deployed on a large scale) and reaching a scale of 10,000 vehicles. By 2027, it will deploy more than 50,000 positively-defined Robotaxi models for the global market.
The core advantage of the strong alliance between "technology foundation company + operator" lies in the following: through open empowerment, it lowers the threshold and cost for operators to independently develop underlying technologies, accelerating the iteration and implementation of autonomous driving algorithms; at the same time, operators can focus on scenario data accumulation, operation optimization, and commercialization, realizing efficient collaboration between technology supply and scenario application. Together, they will promote cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and safety upgrading of large-scale Robotaxis, and gain advantages in the fierce market competition by relying on speed to outperform competitors.
Currently, there are mainly two technical routes for L4 autonomous driving: Leapfrog route-Driven by regulations and systems, it starts from core L3/L4 technologies to build a product system that meets global standards. It emphasizes the completeness of the system architecture, the adaptability of infrastructure, and functional safety and supervision mechanisms, and builds core competitiveness through steady compliance. Progressive route-Driven by user experience, it starts from L2 advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), conducts iterative verification through real-scenario data, continuously improves safety and supervision strategies, and gradually covers urban and long-tail scenarios relying on massive scenario data and functional closed loops, winning the market with rapid iteration and expansion capabilities.
The debate between the two routes has lasted for a long time. The core competitiveness of the progressive route, represented by Tesla and Horizon Robotics, lies in "speed". Dr. Chen Liming, President of Horizon Robotics, stated in his speech at The Bund Conference: "The progressive route is a better path to realize L4. Solid L2 capabilities are a necessary step to achieve L4. Starting from L2, expanding the ODD (Operational Design Domain) boundaries through massive data iteration and gradually realizing L4 capabilities by adding system redundancy can significantly reduce per-vehicle investment and improve ROI (Return on Investment)."
Relying on the accumulation of tens of millions of shipments in the ADAS field, Horizon Robotics has formed an industry-leading complete business closed loop of "technology-product-mass production". It can efficiently migrate algorithms, data, and engineering experience from L2+ scenarios to L4-level scenarios, continuously optimize system performance for Robotaxi application needs, and realize rapid technology replication and large-scale implementation. Meanwhile, Horizon Robotics has the industry's most extensive circle of automotive enterprise partners and ecosystems, as well as the most open business model. It can not only provide full-stack software and hardware technical solutions but also flexibly support partners in independently developing solutions based on the Journey 6 series platform, comprehensively accelerating the application efficiency of Robotaxis.
2025 is a turning point for the large-scale outbreak of urban ADAS. Horizon Robotics predicts that intelligent driving will realize "hands off" (hands-free driving) in the next three years, "eyes off" (eyes-free driving) in five years, and "minds off" (full autonomous driving without human attention) in ten years. In the long journey of the industry's "march toward higher goals", Horizon Robotics will continue to adhere to its industrial positioning as a technological infrastructure provider, join hands with more extensive ecological partners to promote the arrival of the ultimate autonomous driving era, and ultimately contribute to the intelligent transformation of human mobility.
(Reprinted from https://news.eccn.com/）