In this episode, Nicolai Tangen interviews Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics, about how his company became a dominant supplier of chips and software for self-driving cars in China, with nearly all business focused on passenger vehicles. Kai explains China's competitive advantage, the evolution from hands-free to mind-off driving, and the overlap between automotive and robotics technology, predicting transformative changes by 2028.
Summarized by Podsumo
Horizon Robotics supplies computing platforms for self-driving cars, with nearly 100% of business focused on passenger vehicles, and its chips are used in roughly one in four cars in China.
Yu Kai outlines a timeline: hands-off driving in three years, eyes-off in five, and mind-off in ten years, with hands-free expected for all Chinese passenger vehicles by end of 2028.
China's car market is brutally competitive but innovative, with development cycles of two years versus five in Europe, driven by hard work and a self-motivated engineering culture.
Kai sees strong synergy between self-driving cars and humanoid robotics, arguing that winners in automotive supply chains will dominate robotics, given shared technology and supply chain advantages.
He emphasizes a 'win-win' mindset for global collaboration, rejecting zero-sum competition and highlighting China's strengths in manufacturing and innovation.
"In some sense, this is terrible business, heavy investment, very slow return. But sometimes terrible business means a great business because that's the entry barrier for all the other newcomers is extremely high."
"If you look at the name of our company, 11 years ago, we named our company Horizon Robotics. We envision there should be a unified platform, just like Windows and Intel did for personal computing."
"Happiness is so simple. Many people are having a miserable life just because when they are supposed to sleep, they think about work; when they are working, they think about something else."