XPeng‘s new AI Turing Chip outperforms, by far, Nvidia‘s chips used for autonomous driving — co-founder and CEO, He Xiaopeng, said in a Financial Times interview on Thursday.
At the pre-launch event for the G7 SUV, the first model to feature the chip, Xiaopeng stated that the AI Turing Chip has a computing power of 2,200 tera-operations per second (TOPS).
According to the executive, the chip’s computing power is above the typical range for vehicles available in the Chinese market — which are usually between 80 and 700.
Xiaopeng added that “the effective computing power of the Turing AI chip is three times greater than that of the leading autonomous driving chip, Orin-X.”
Nvidia‘s Orin series delivers up to 275 trillion operations per second (TOPS). These chips power smart driving features in vehicles such as XPeng’s, including the recently launched Mona M03 Max, and Xiaomi’s debut SU7.
Nvidia‘s latest chip for autonomous driving is the Drive Thor, which targets up to 2,000 TOPS. Xiaomi’s upcoming YU7 will feature the AGX Thor variant, capable of up to 700 TOPS.
According to He Xiaopeng, “developing chips is fundamentally a long-term commitment, as XPeng envisions doing a lot of things across cars, aircraft and robotics.”
The chief executive said that its chip business will help the automaker to recover from investments over the years.
“Someone told me that selling 1 million chips would make the business profitable,” Xiaopeng said, adding that he’ll “wait until we actually hit 1 million before deciding if that holds true.”
The Guangzhou-based company aims to supply its in-house developed chip to other car manufacturers with the CEO saying the company is “looking for long-term partners” besides Volkswagen.
Approached by FT, a Volkswagen spokesperson in China said: “As announced, Volkswagen and Xpeng are jointly developing two Volkswagen brand cars for the mid-class segment. Both parties contribute their respective strength. These cars will be launched next year.”
XPeng x Volkswagen
In July 2023, Volkswagen and XPeng announced a partnership for the joint development of two mid-size fully electric models for the Chinese market.
Volkswagen invested about $700 million in a 4.99% stake in XPeng, a purchase that was completed by year end.
The models are expected to launch in 2026, according to a statement by the two companies in early 2024.
In early 2025, the collaboration was strengthened to build a super-fast charging network in the country.
The network will feature “over 20,000 charging piles operated by both parties across 420 cities,” according to a joint statement.
According to XPeng‘s chief executive, VW‘s investment in the company has allowed it to become the first Chinese carmaker “to launch autopilot functions for expressways and a fully voice-controlled smart cabin system.”
