{"id":20888,"date":"2026-09-08T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T03:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/?p=20888"},"modified":"2026-09-08T17:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:40:14","slug":"xiaomis-l3-autonomous-driving-lead-exits-for-physical-ai-joining-auto-executive-exodus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/2026\/09\/08\/xiaomis-l3-autonomous-driving-lead-exits-for-physical-ai-joining-auto-executive-exodus\/","title":{"rendered":"Xiaomi’s L3 autonomous driving lead exits for physical AI, joining auto executive exodus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Xiaomi Auto’s L3 autonomous driving technology lead, Wang Naiyan, has reportedly left to launch a physical AI venture, becoming the latest core technology talent from China’s auto industry to enter the emerging field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang recently left Xiaomi and has been meeting frequently with investors to explore physical AI opportunities, 36Kr reported on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21jingji also reported today, citing multiple independent sources, that Wang has launched an embodied AI venture focused on robot brains and is seeking funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang’s team includes several former colleagues from TuSimple, now renamed CreateAI, and has more than 10 core researchers and engineers, an investor told 21jingji.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang’s move extends a migration of automotive autonomous driving talent into robotics and embodied AI. Former executives atXpeng(NYSE: XPEV) andLi Auto(NASDAQ: LI) have joined companies in the field or launched startups, while the autonomous driving chief atNio Inc(NYSE: NIO) is also pursuing an independent venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift reflects efforts to apply perception, planning and reinforcement learning capabilities developed for autonomous driving to a broader range of tasks in the physical world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For automakers, it also means growing pressure to retain core AI talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang holds a doctorate from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and spent 9 years at TuSimple’s China operations, serving as chief technology officer for the China region from 2019, 36Kr noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He joined Xiaomi Auto in May 2024 to lead autonomous driving technology development and L3 projects, reporting to Ye Hangjun, general manager of the autonomous driving and robotics division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the 4 core members of Xiaomi’s autonomous driving team announced last year, Wang and Chen Long have now both left to launch startups, according to 36Kr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang’s notable work at Xiaomi included an autonomous driving project demonstrated at the N\u00fcrburgring Nordschleife in June. He said at the time that exploring the limits of vehicle performance would help inform L3 development by improving understanding of those physical boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His new venture aims to develop embodied AI foundation models with stronger generalization capabilities, allowing systems to adapt to environments and tasks not covered by their training data, 21jingji reported, citing people close to Wang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project plans to introduce reinforcement learning during action-model pretraining, using extensive trial and error in simulations to learn behavioral strategies, the report said. It will initially focus on developing the models’ basic capabilities before deploying them in specific scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The auto industry has already seen several similar moves. Former Xpeng autonomous driving chief Li Liyun and former vice president Chen Yonghai have joined EngineAI Robotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Li Auto chief AI scientist Chen Wei founded Xieyue Intelligent, focusing on consumer embodied AI products for home use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Li Auto’s former autonomous driving chief, Lang Xianpeng, also left and co-founded Kunlunxing Robotics with former Huawei executive Ren Geng, CnEVPost previously reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) has adopted an arrangement that retains a key executive while supporting an outside venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nio founder, chairman and CEO William Li confirmed on the company’sSeptember 1 earnings callthat autonomous driving chief Ren Shaoqing would launch a physical AI venture, with Nio backing it as a strategic shareholder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ren will remain head of Nio’s autonomous driving division, responsible for its technical direction and long-term strategy. Li said the arrangement allows Nio to maintain strategic investment in physical AI while focusing on its core business, without affecting its profit and loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether autonomous driving expertise can translate successfully into robotics remains to be seen. Robots face more complex motion-control tasks, while data collection and simulation training are also more difficult, 21jingji reported, citing industry sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xiaomi Auto’s L3 autonomous driving technology lead, Wang Naiyan, has reportedly left to launch a physical AI venture, becoming the latest core technology talent from China’s auto industry to enter the emerging field. Wang recently left Xiaomi and has been meeting frequently with investors to explore physical AI opportunities, 36Kr reported on Tuesday. 21jingji also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-20888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-robot","tag-xiaomi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20890,"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20888\/revisions\/20890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ayoyo.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}