Liu Fawang, deputy director of the Equipment Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
01
The automotive industry is a model for shaping and shaping new quality productivity
China Automotive News: Since September last year, new productivity has gradually become a hot topic in various domestic industries, especially in the economic and technological fields. This year's government work report (hereinafter referred to as the "report") also proposed: "vigorously promote the construction of a modern industrial system and accelerate the development of new quality productive forces." On March 26, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also said at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council that the new quality productivity has been formed in practice and has shown a strong driving force and support for high-quality development.
At the same time, the report pointed out that we should expand the leading edge of new energy vehicles and intelligent networked vehicles. The industry believes that the automobile industry has become a model and application carrier of new quality productivity, do you agree?
Liu Fawang: So to speak. The new quality productivity is a contemporary advanced productive force born from revolutionary breakthroughs in technology, innovative allocation of production factors, and in-depth industrial transformation and upgrading. The new quality productivity emphasizes the innovation and upgrading of technology, and constantly gives birth to new industries, new models and new kinetic energy. The transformation of the automobile industry driven by the technological revolution has been carried out all over the world, and the automobile industry has changed from traditional energy to new energy, and new production methods are replacing traditional production methods. The intelligent networked new energy vehicle industry integrates new technologies, new materials, new generation information technology, advanced manufacturing and other new technologies, and is the leading industry leading the high-end, intelligent and green transformation and development of the global manufacturing industry.
Over the past 20 years, the mainland automotive industry has coordinated the promotion of technological innovation, promotion and application and infrastructure construction, cultivated the world's largest new energy vehicle consumer group, a complete industrial supporting system and a perfect policy support system, vigorously promoted technological progress and industrial ecological construction, injected strong impetus into the development of the global new energy vehicle industry, provided valuable experience, and was a model for forming and shaping new quality productivity. In 2023, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China will reach 9.587 million and 9.495 million respectively, ranking first in the world for nine consecutive years, with a market penetration rate of 31.6%. Among them, the export of new energy vehicles was 1.203 million units, a year-on-year increase of 77.6%, and the production and sales accounted for more than 60% of the global total, which has become a shining new business card of "Made in China".
With the continuous development of intelligence and networking, the connotation and extension of automobiles are also changing, extending from transportation vehicles to large-scale intelligent mobile terminals and data spaces, and gradually becoming a key element to support the construction of intelligent transportation and smart cities. Through joint efforts, the development of the mainland's intelligent networked vehicle industry has achieved positive results, with a new generation of electronic and electrical architecture, large computing power chips, etc., realizing loading applications, multi-scenario demonstration applications such as self-driving taxis, unmanned buses, autonomous valet parking and trunk logistics, and continuing to promote the pilot of intelligent networked vehicle access and road traffic, and the pilot application of "vehicle-road-cloud integration" have been carried out in an orderly manner, which have laid a solid foundation for the innovation and development of subsequent industries.
02
Artificial intelligence is a key driver of the automotive revolution
China Automotive News: The report mentions that it is necessary to deepen the R&D and application of big data and artificial intelligence, and carry out the "artificial intelligence +" action. The automobile industry has become the leader of the high-quality development of the digital economy, and will also be the super-large mother ecology of artificial intelligence technology application, "artificial intelligence + automobile" is boosting the transformation of the century-old automobile industry and will change people's lifestyles. Last year's release of the "Vehicle Intelligent Computing Basic Platform Reference Architecture 2.0" (hereinafter referred to as "Reference Architecture 2.0") for the first time introduced artificial intelligence-related content, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Equipment Industry Development Center is one of the issuing units, as the core guidance expert, how do you view the application status and future development trend of artificial intelligence in intelligent networked vehicles?
Liu Fawang: Artificial intelligence is a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, with a strong spillover driving "head goose" effect, and accelerating the development of a new generation of artificial intelligence is a strategic issue related to whether the mainland can seize the opportunity of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. In the process of technological research and development, product design, manufacturing, sales and service in the automotive industry, artificial intelligence will be a key driving force, which will significantly improve the efficiency of the entire value chain, and ultimately produce more efficient new business formats and new economic models. With technological progress and cross-border integration of industries, the combination of automobiles and artificial intelligence is an unavoidable reality for any car company.
The "Reference Architecture 2.0 of the In-Vehicle Intelligent Computing Basic Platform" released in 2023 proposes for the first time a reference scheme for the combination of the "brain" of the car and artificial intelligence. "Reference Architecture 2.0" is described in Chapter 4 Vehicle Control Operating System, Chapter 5 Tool Chain, and Chapter 7 Security System. In terms of intelligent driving, the transformer+BEV autonomous driving solution has begun to be applied, and in the future, the artificial intelligence model will gradually become an important part of the functional software layer, mainly used for inference and data stream processing. At the middleware layer, AI model interfaces and development libraries (SDKs) can be set up to support the transplantation and operation of autonomous driving models and applications across chips.
In addition, artificial intelligence after-sales service has gradually become the highlight of the value-added service of car companies, which can improve the response speed and quality of customer service and greatly improve the efficiency of after-sales service through intelligent fault self-inspection guidance, intelligent billing, intelligent assisted learning and other functions. In R&D, design, manufacturing and other links, typical application scenarios of artificial intelligence-enabled innovation are also being discussed. For example, scene data is a key resource for competition in the field of driving assistance and autonomous driving, and scene generation technology based on large models has gradually become a hot topic in the industry.
For enterprises in the automobile, electronic information and other industries in the mainland, it is still necessary to adhere to the problem-oriented and demand-driven, give full play to the advantages of the mainland's rich application scenarios and data resources, unify ideas, strengthen coordination, integrate the strengths of each company, give full play to their respective advantages, and strive to seize development opportunities.
03
Car companies need to work the car operating system
China Automotive News: In November last year, the four ministries and commissions issued the "Notice on the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicle Access and Road Traffic", which is a landmark node for China's automobile industry.
Liu Fawang: The official release of the "Notice on the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicle Access and Road Traffic" marks a key step in the large-scale development of the mainland's intelligent networked vehicle industry. In recent years, intelligent networked vehicle products equipped with autonomous driving functions have met certain conditions for mass production and application, and their development is showing the characteristics of accelerated breakthroughs in core technologies, rapid improvement of support capabilities, and gradual maturity of industrial ecology. In this context, the purpose of carrying out the pilot project of intelligent networked vehicle access and road traffic is to accelerate the improvement of the technical level of intelligent networked vehicle products, accelerate the industrialization process of intelligent networked vehicles, and accumulate experience for the large-scale application management of intelligent networked vehicles based on the pilot evidence.
In general, the access pilot adheres to the principle of technology neutrality, focuses on the safety of the whole vehicle, and does not stipulate the implementation route of autonomous driving technology, nor does it directly put forward requirements for the quality and performance of the vehicle operating system. However, for intelligent networked vehicles, one of the key elements to do a good job in upper-layer applications and services is to have a good operating system as a basis. As a complex system, the development of the intelligent driving operating system is even more difficult due to the technology-intensive and large development investment, coupled with the requirements of the automotive industry such as high safety and high reliability. In addition, as a basic general product, it needs to continue to do a good job of maintenance, upgrading, updating and iteration for several years or even decades after being listed, which puts forward higher requirements for production enterprises. For these deep-seated problems, automobile companies must attach great importance to it.
04
"Reference Architecture 2.0" condenses the consensus on the development path of car companies
China Automotive News: You mentioned the importance of operating systems for intelligent networked vehicles, and hope that enterprises will attach great importance to these deep-seated issues. Although the pilot work does not directly require this, the "reference architecture" has gathered a lot of industry consensus and put forward a trending guidance reference for the development direction of the intelligent networked vehicle operating system. We know that version 1.0 was released four years ago, and now version 2.0 has been released for a few months.
Liu Fawang: In the past few years, China has made some progress in the field of automotive operating systems, and the field of intelligent cockpits even has an industry-leading level. "Reference Architecture 1.0" has played an important role in unifying industry understanding and promoting consensus, and has also been widely recognized by the industry. "Reference Architecture 2.0" is based on 1.0, facing the application needs of the next 3~5 years, organizing more than 40 representative industry enterprises and institutions to cooperate and write in-depth discussions, actively absorbing the industry's representative research results, further strengthening the forward-looking, strategic and systematic top-level design, and consistent with the definition of terms in national, industry, group and other standards, which is conducive to further unifying understanding, enhancing interoperability, and guiding and promoting the construction of industrial ecology.
"Reference Architecture 2.0" adopts systems engineering thinking, carefully sorts out the functional positioning and overall architecture of the reference architecture of the vehicle-mounted intelligent computing basic platform, and reasonably plans the technology evolution route. While promoting the R&D and application of operating systems, the automotive industry also needs to attach great importance to the combination of software and hardware of operating systems and chips, and simultaneously build development and debugging tools, application software, and developer communities, so as to create an open and win-win ecosystem. We can make full use of new production tools such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing to solidly promote new industrialization and jointly promote the high-quality development of the automotive industry.
Text: Hu Yikun Editor: Sun Huanyu Layout: Wang Kun
Add a chicken leg to the editor!