Former Honor (荣耀) chief Zhao Ming shifts to autonomous driving, praises Qianli Technology (千里科技) as “industry‑leading” and “fears no rivals”

From phones to cars

Zhao Ming, the former head of Honor (荣耀), has publicly declared a dramatic career pivot into autonomous driving after joining Qianli Technology (千里科技). In a video released this week he argued the phone and auto sectors share a core requirement: digging deep into foundational technology. He said Qianli’s stack — now being accelerated by a strategic tie‑up with domestic large‑model firm Jieyue Xingchen (阶跃星辰) — has stitched together an end‑to‑end intelligent‑driving route, and that the company will rapid‑fire product iterations moving forward. It has been reported that Zhao added Qianli “fears no rival,” a strong claim he framed after first‑hand testing of the system.

Who is Zhao and what is Qianli?

Zhao Ming’s pedigree is well known in China’s device world: he joined Huawei in 1998, became Honor’s (荣耀) president in 2015 and took the helm as CEO after Honor’s 2020 spin‑out. He left Honor in January 2025 and, after a period away, officially joined Qianli in February 2026 and was named co‑chair on March 3. Qianli, which traces its roots to Lifan and was renamed in 2025, has refocused on an “AI+car” strategy with Geely (吉利) a major shareholder — a reminder that established automakers in China are betting heavily on software stacks developed in‑house or with domestic partners.

Technology, products and claims

According to company disclosures and media reporting, Qianli’s “Qianli Haohan G‑ASD (千里浩瀚 G‑ASD)” system uses an end‑to‑end model architecture that fuses multimodal base models and visual‑language models; the platform has reportedly iterated to a 4.0 release this March. The G‑ASD system is already mounted on 16 models across Zeekr (极氪), Lynk & Co (领克) and other brands, covering more than 300,000 vehicles. Last night’s global launch of the Zeekr 8X debuted the “Super Eva+G‑ASD 4.0” whole‑vehicle intelligence package developed with Geely and Jieyue Xingchen. Zhao said he had traveled to Silicon Valley to try Tesla’s full‑self‑driving and has been waiting for Qianli to meet that benchmark — now, he reportedly claims, Qianli has surpassed it.

What it means for competition and geopolitics

Zhao’s brash language — “industry‑best” and “bring it on, Tesla” — reads like a challenge to foreign incumbents. But these claims should be viewed in context: China’s AI and auto suppliers are racing to close gaps made more acute by Western export controls on advanced chips and AI tooling, and domestic partnerships are a strategic response. Will Qianli displace overseas leaders on driving intelligence? Rapid software iteration, Geely’s industrial scale and local model stacks give the company advantages at home. Yet proving safety, real‑world robustness, and international regulatory acceptance remains a different and steep hill to climb.