Recently, Didi has conducted fully autonomous driving service tests in multiple cities and achieved large-scale commercial operation in cities such as Wuhan, which has attracted high social attention. This event not only signifies a qualitative change of the Robotaxi business model from quantity to quality, but also marks further development of self-driving technology in practical applications.

In this wave of autonomous driving technology, the city of Wuhan has not only witnessed the rise of Didi, but will also witness the listing of the first self-driving AI chip. The Hong Kong stock market is welcoming a rare investment target in the field of self-driving chips - on July 31, Hezhima Intelligence started its IPO, and is getting closer to listing on the Hong Kong stock market. According to public information, the company's offering price per share is no more than 30.30 Hong Kong dollars, with a minimum board lot of 100 shares and an entry fee of 3,061 Hong Kong dollars.

The listing of Hezhima Intelligence is another important event in the field of self-driving. As the "brain" of autonomous driving cars, self-driving AI chips play a vital role in improving the intelligence level of cars and achieving higher level of autonomous driving functions. As a star enterprise in the field of intelligent automobile AI chips, Hezhima Intelligence's products have been widely used in many well-known auto manufacturers. The company has not only won high recognition in the market, but also attracted the favor of many star investment institutions, further demonstrating its great potential and investment value.

Part I "Dual-Core" powerful driving

Hezhima Intelligence's R&D team has brought together top experts in the fields of semiconductor design, self-driving technology, and AI algorithms, who have an average industry experience of more than 15 years and have served world-renowned companies such as Bosch, NVIDIA, Ambarella, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Huawei. The team's deep professional knowledge and rich experience have laid a solid foundation for Hezhima Intelligence's independent research and development capabilities, and provided powerful support to the company's overtaking in global competition.

The company's high product development efficiency is the best proof of this strength. Since its establishment in 2016, Hezhima Intelligence has achieved the mass production of the Huashan A1000 chip in 2022, using only six years. In comparison, Mobileye's automotive chips took 8 years from R&D to formal commercial use, and NVIDIA, a global leader in AI chips, took 9 years to apply the K1 chip to Audi's vehicle system after the release of CUDA. It is worth mentioning that the performance of the Huashan A1000 chip is excellent. As the first product of the Huashan series, it is specially designed for L2+ and L3 autonomous driving, providing a strong computing power of 58 TOPS, and has passed the ASIL-B and AEC-Q100 Level 2 certification, indicating that China has made important progress in high computing power autonomous driving SoC field.

After years of hard work, Hezhima Intelligence has now formed two core product lines: Huashan series high computing power SoC and Wudang series cross-domain SoC, accurately capturing and leading the development trend of high computing power and cross-domain fusion in the industry.

With the advent of the era of autonomous driving, the importance of computing power is increasingly prominent, becoming the core competitiveness of major auto manufacturers. The demand for advanced autonomous driving chips is growing day by day, and multi-sensor fusion technology has become the key to dealing with complex situations and ensuring safety redundancy. According to the analysis of Haitong Securities Research Institute, the computing power requirement for L2 autonomous driving is about 10+ TOPS, while L4/L5 autonomous driving requires at least 1000+ TOPS, and the computing power requirement has increased by 100 times. In addition, since this year, xAI has launched Grok-1.5V multimodal large model, Xiaopeng and other car companies have accelerated the research and development of large model autonomous driving, and Tesla's FSD version has been continuously updated, which continues to verify the deep integration of large models and autonomous driving technology at an unprecedented speed. This will force the autonomous driving AI chip to continuously iterate and upgrade to meet the growing computing power demand.

Huashan series SoC is a high-performance computing platform launched by Hezhima Intelligence for autonomous driving applications, including Huashan A1000, Huashan A1000L, Huashan A1000 Pro, and Huashan A2000, which is currently under development. It is expected to adopt 7nm process and provide more than 250 TOPS of computing power, aiming to meet the demand of L3 and above level autonomous driving, and is expected to become one of the world's highest-performing automotive-grade SoCs.

Meanwhile, as Tier 1 suppliers such as Ambof and Bosch and automakers such as Volkswagen and BMW explore new electronic and electrical architectures, traditional distributed automotive electronic and electrical architectures are gradually transitioning to domain-centralized architectures, which is driving demand for cross-domain high computing power chips. In the face of the innovation of automotive electronic and electrical architectures, Heizhima Intelligence has launched the Wudang series cross-domain SoC from a forward-looking perspective, realizing the cross-border integration of multiple domains such as cockpit, intelligent driving, vehicle control, and gateway through highly integrated design concepts. Among them, Wudang C1200 is a leader in the industry, not only improving the human-machine interaction experience of smart cars, realizing intelligent driving with parking and driving in one, but also enhancing data exchange capabilities, flexibly adapting to diverse industry architectural needs at present and in the future. Through cross-domain integration, the Wudang series effectively reduces the demand for multiple independent chips, thereby achieving the maximization of cost-effectiveness while guaranteeing comprehensive functions.

The Huashan and Wudang series form the company's development "dual-core" engine, enabling it to grasp the pulse of industry development and stand at the forefront of the wave of autonomous driving technology.

Chapter II A leap in performance four times in three years

According to authoritative data from Frost Sullivan, Heizhima Intelligence has crowned the position of the world's third largest supplier with its shipment of high-computing power SoCs for automotive regulations in 2023. In the Chinese market, Heizhima Intelligence ranks among the top three in the high-computing autonomous driving SoC market with a market share of about 7.2%.

The company's customer base continues to expand, growing from 45 in 2021 to 85 in 2023. Among them, the company has established stable partnerships with over 49 automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, including international well-known enterprises such as Orca Technology, Baidu, Bosch, and ZF. Heizhima Intelligence's A1000 series chip has won the favor of many top domestic car companies including First Automobile Group, Dongfeng Group, Geely Group, and Jiangqi Group, providing core driving force for over 20 models. The mass production model lineup is shining, including Lynk & Co 08, Huitao V09, Dongfeng eπ007, and Dongfeng eπ008, becoming the most widely adopted autonomous driving chip by domestic mass production automakers.

The mutual confirmation of business and financial data highlights the significant achievements that Heizhima Intelligence has made in the field of autonomous driving chips through continuous innovation, market expansion, and in-depth cooperation with automakers and Tier 1 suppliers. Heizhima Intelligence's autonomous driving product and solution revenue has grown from 34.261 million yuan in 2021, accounting for 56.6% of total revenue, to 2.76 billion yuan in 2023, accounting for 88.5% of total revenue, an increase of over seven times in three years. The rapid development of this sector has driven the rapid growth of the company's overall business, with total revenue increasing from 60.5 million yuan in 2021 to 3.12 billion yuan in 2023, with a high average annual compound growth rate of 127.2%, doubling every year on average.

The company is in the initial stage of commercialization and has entered the fast lane of explosive growth; the commercialization path has been verified by the market, and the development and commercialization of the next generation of products is accelerating, revealing an infinite potential future. Heizhima Intelligence has stated that it will continue to focus on the development of car-grade SoCs and IP cores that lead the industry with outstanding performance. The highly anticipated next-generation SoC, Huashan A2000, is currently under intense development and is expected to be launched in 2024. At the same time, the company is also actively expanding its capabilities in the car-grade chip field, including further developing and commercializing the Wudang series cross-domain SoC. At present, the Wudang C1200 SoC has provided prototypes to potential customers and is in deep discussions with well-known automotive OEMs, with expected revenue from C1200 in 2024 and targets to achieve mass production before 2025.

Looking ahead, according to Frost Sullivan's data, the global car-grade SoC market is expected to grow from 57.9 billion yuan in 2023 to 205.3 billion yuan in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 28.8% during the period. The market size of ADAS applications (L1 and L2 autonomous driving) in China's SoC market is expected to reach 14.1 billion yuan in 2023. In terms of technological reserves, Heizhima Intelligence's L2 and L2+ level products have achieved commercial maturity, and its L3 technology reserves are strong, which can effectively meet the frontier demand of the market. Therefore, with the continuous development of autonomous driving technology and the deepening of commercial applications, Heizhima Intelligence is expected to be the first to benefit from market opportunities, continue to maintain a high-speed growth trend in the future, and further expand its share in the autonomous driving chip market.

Chapter III Capital market catalysts are constantly emerging

From the perspective of the capital market, Heizhima Intelligence is undoubtedly the center of attention and enjoys a high market attention.

As the pioneer in the field of autonomous driving AI chips, the company has won the title of "the first stock of autonomous driving AI chips," which is a highly scarce target for autonomous driving chips. In addition, Heizhima Intelligence's hard technology and specialized new properties are also very prominent, and the scarcity of technology is further highlighted. In the second half of the year, it stands out among Hong Kong's new shares with its unique features.

In addition, the luxurious shareholder lineup has further increased its market attention. Its shareholders include Xiaomi Changjiang Industry Fund, Aurora Venture Capital, SAIC Motor Corporation, China Merchants Group, Tencent, Bosch Group, Nio Capital, Geely Holding Group, Haitong Capital, Wuyuefeng Capital, and China Investment Corporation. Such a diversified shareholder background not only injects rich resources and broad industry vision into the company but also establishes a powerful strategic synergistic effect.

Specifically, auto manufacturers such as SAIC Motor Corporation and Geely Holding have provided valuable market insights and access paths for Hezhima Intelligence with their extensive industry experience and channel networks, promoting deep cooperation and product implementation in the auto intelligence field, and accelerating the market penetration of the company's products. As for technology companies such as Tencent and Bosch Group, they have brought cutting-edge technical support and broad cooperation opportunities for Hezhima Intelligence with their excellent technology research and development strength and innovation ability, jointly pushing the boundaries of autonomous driving technology. As sharp observers of the market, investment institutions, with their deep industry understanding and rich resource scheduling capabilities, have joined forces with other shareholders to help Hezhima Intelligence move to a higher level and further consolidate its leading position in the auto chip field. These strategic partnerships not only bring resource integration to Hezhima Intelligence, but also provide solid support for the company's future development.

Looking ahead to the future market, we can easily see that the autonomous driving field will frequently receive various catalysts in the second half of the year, and the market performance is therefore highly anticipated. In June, Roborun attracted widespread market attention. Shortly thereafter, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology issued the "Beijing Autonomous Driving Automobile Regulations (Draft for Soliciting Opinions)", which proposes a series of specific provisions in industry innovation, industry chain development, testing and evaluation, certification capacity building, standard setting, and data utilization. In July, Shanghai officially issued the license for the demonstration application of intelligent connected vehicles without drivers; in the same month, Tesla was also included in the procurement catalog of the Jiangsu local government and Shanghai state-owned enterprises, which is expected to further promote the development of domestic autonomous driving technology. In August, Hezhima Intelligence, as a leading enterprise in autonomous driving AI chips, will soon enter the capital market, marking a new stage of growth for the company.

From the boom of Roborun to the listing of Hezhima Intelligence, we have witnessed the strong development momentum of autonomous driving technology and the industry of autonomous driving AI chips. In the future, how will the development blueprint of this field unfold, it is worth our collective anticipation and witnessing.