Navigate on Autopilot (NoA) has become the standard feature of an intelligent car in recent years. China-based AI chip maker Horizon Robotics launched the Journey 5 chip, boasting high computing power and performance. It has formed partnerships with OEMs to speed up the adoption of automotive AI chips locally.
Horizon has collaborated with China-based Li Auto since 2022. The Journey 5 chip enables Li Auto's AD Pro system on the carmaker's L8 Pro. The model was the first one to realize the high-speed NoA function.
Among Li Auto's Max, Pro and Air model versions, the AD Max model uses Nvidia's Orin chips. The computing power of a single chip is 254 TOPS and 500 TOPS for the whole system.
Li Auto's AD Pro and Air versions are equipped with the Journey 5 chip, which offers 128 TOPS in computing power. Yinan Yu, Horizon's vice president, said the computing speed is much more important. Horizon emphasizes more on growing the utilization efficiency of a chip while maintaining the highest computing power as possible.
Established in 2015, Horizon has introduced three product series to the market, raising the computing power from 4 TOPS with the Journey 2 series to 128 TOPS with the Journey 5. The latest product is one of the few high-performance computing (HPC) chipsets in mass production.
Yu Kai, Horizon's founder and CEO, has said the Journey 5 can support the sensor fusion and predictive control required by autonomous driving.
As cars become more intelligent, OEMs are racing to scale their NoA systems. Horizon, a tier-2 supplier, works closely with tier-1s. Its Journey 5 supports China-based SAIC, GAC, BYD and Hongqi, in addition to Li Auto.
Chinese semiconductor companies need to pass multiple verifications for autonomous driving chip development, including functional security, information security and other tests.
According to Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute, NoA systems are estimated to be installed on more than 3.8 million vehicles in China in 2025, with a penetration rate reaching 17%. The technology has great potential in the market.
