Horizon Robotics tops 15 million intelligent-driving chips as robotics alliance and construction demo emerge in China

Horizon began front-loaded mass production of Journey chips in 2020. It took five years to reach the first 10 million units and 12 months to add the next 5 million, the company said. Its chips are used by more than 8 million vehicle owners, and it has supplied over 40 brands, including all of China’s top 10 automakers. Horizon has received 500 mass-production model design wins, nearly 130 for mid- and high-level assisted driving, with more than 20 million design-win units still in the pipeline.

According to the Blue Book on Large-Scale Commercial Application of Autonomous Driving published by Xinhua’s China Economic Information Service, cited by Leiphone, Horizon held a 31.94% share of China’s full-segment intelligent-driving chip market in the first half of 2026, ahead of Nvidia’s 29.38%. In the market for urban NOA chip supply in Chinese self-brand passenger cars, Horizon’s share rose to 22.82%, up nearly five percentage points from 2025 and ranking second behind Nvidia.

Horizon said Volkswagen’s ID.ERA 5S, powered by a single Journey 6M chip and priced from 89,900 yuan, is VW’s first global sedan with urban NOA and all-scenario parking, reflecting the shift of high-end assisted driving to low-cost mainstream models. Separately, in interim results released three days earlier, Horizon reported revenue of 2.055 billion yuan for the first half of 2026, up 32.9% year on year, with gross margin at 66%. Authorization and service revenue rose 52.7% to 1.129 billion yuan, exceeding product revenue of 926 million yuan for the first time and accounting for 55% of total revenue. CEO Yu Kai said the mix change reflects a platform model in which chip sales are complemented by technology licensing and future software subscriptions.

The company said it is working with more than 200 ecosystem partners, including Bosch and Denso. A co-developed solution with Volkswagen, based on Journey 6 chips and the HSD algorithm, has entered production and will appear in seven new electric models across Volkswagen’s three China joint ventures, expanding to more CEA models from 2027. Horizon has also been nominated for a global passenger-car platform project with a mainstream German automotive group, with mass production planned for 2027 and sales covering China, Australia, New Zealand, India and other markets. It said it has more than 60 export-model design wins, and six of China’s largest auto exporters are its customers.

On Sept. 2, dexterous-hand maker Lingxin Qiaoshou and Xingyuan Zhi initiated the China Embodied Intelligence Tier-1 Industry Alliance, joined by more than 20 supply-chain companies covering embodied brains, dexterous hands, voice interaction, visual perception, lidar, robotic arms, mobile chassis, wireless communication and sensors. Leiphone reported the alliance aims to address common bottlenecks by standardizing cross-hardware interfaces, sharing test data and conducting joint pre-research on next-generation robot architectures.

Lingxin Qiaoshou said its Linker Hand product line covers cable-driven, linkage and direct-drive designs and integrates high-density array pressure sensors and electronic skin for sub-millimeter operation. Its software stack includes teleoperation, a skill store and the Linker Genesis embodied-intelligence large model, plus an open-source UMI-Dex data-collection scheme designed to capture high-quality real-robot data.

ZINOVA, a startup focused on tool intelligence, said it recently completed a scaled-down tilt-up concrete construction demonstration with LimX Dynamics’ TRON 2 dual-arm robot and robotics builder RIC Robotics. Two TRON 2 robots, one handling a nail gun and another holding a form board, worked together to assemble a concrete formwork frame, then laid and tied rebar to reproduce a multi-step construction workflow.

ZINOVA said it used TRON 2’s modular, expandable platform to explore a new robot configuration that extends the arms’ working space and allows tool operations from different directions and heights. Founder Xu Ziyou said the approach lets the company focus on tool intelligence across robot forms. LimX Dynamics co-founder Pang Bo said the collaboration demonstrates how a common robot platform can help industry innovators quickly verify and iterate sector applications.