Momenta‘s self-developed chips ignite the elimination race in autonomous driving chips.

                                                                Self-developed chips are of great significance

Let’s start with a brief introduction to Momenta. Founded in 2016, the company has previously focused on delivering high-performance intelligent driving solutions, primarily targeting the mid-to-high-end market. Its product lineup includes the mass-production L2 advanced driver-assistance system Mpilot and the L4 fully autonomous driving system MSD. The company’s overall strategy combines adual-track product approach—simultaneously advancing both L2 and L4 technologies—with a data-driven "flywheel" strategy for continuous improvement.

To date, Momenta has established partnerships with several leading domestic and international automakers, including multiple brands ranked among the global top 10 in sales. Key customers include

 Chinese automakers such as SAIC, BYD, and GAC, as well as overseas giants like Toyota and Mercedes-Benz. Notable mass-production models featuring Momenta’s technology include the IM L6/LS6,

 Lynk & Co Z10, and Hyper HT LiDAR Edition.

In terms of customer volume, Momenta currently holds the highest number of high-level intelligent driving designated cooperation projects and partners with the most automakers among suppliers. Its client base spans domestic central-government-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises, private companies, as well as overseas Japanese, German, and American automakers. Particularly for overseas automakers, there are few capable intelligent driving solution suppliers available internationally. With Tesla’s FSD not yet open for licensing, Momenta has become almost the top choice at present.

According to data released by third-party research firm Gasgoo Auto Research, from January 2023 to October 2024, Momenta held a 60.1% market share in urban NOA, ranking first among third-party intelligent driving companies. Huawei’s HI model (excluding Huawei AITO models) ranked second with a 29.8% market share, while other suppliers accounted for less than 10% combined. As of now, mass-produced models equipped with Momenta’s urban NOA technology have achieved cumulative sales of 114,000 units, leading the industry.

However, Momenta’s solutions have mostly been paired with NVIDIA chips. As early as 2019, Momenta collaborated with NVIDIA to demonstrate Mpilot automated parking and NOA. In 2023, Momenta officially launched the mid-range mass-production intelligent driving solution Mpilot Pro, further deepening its strategic partnership with NVIDIA. This collaboration expanded product strategic deployment, introducing the Mpilot Pro solution based on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin cost-effective chip configurations.

In November last year, Momenta also signed a tripartite cooperation agreement with IM Motors and NVIDIA to develop one of the industry’s first mass-production intelligent driving solutions powered by the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor chip. This solution is set to debut in IM Motors’ mass-produced models in 2025.

Not limited to NVIDIA, Momenta also announced a new collaboration with Qualcomm last year. Leveraging the scalable and energy-efficient architecture of the latest Snapdragon

 Ride Platform (SA8620P and SA8650P), the partnership aims to deliver multiple scalable automotive intelligent driving solutions.

For Momenta, building on established platforms like NVIDIA and Qualcomm while focusing on intelligent driving software appears to be a strategically sound approach. On one

 hand, it helps control costs and achieve higher gross margins; on the other, it reduces the uncertainties and risks associated with in-house chip development.

However, Momenta has never been a company to "play it safe." In July 2023, just over two months after the dissolution of Zeku, more than ten former Zeku executives joined

 Momenta. These included Zeku’s Chief Operating Officer Li Zonglin, Software Department Director Jia Mingjun, Senior Director of SoC Division 2 Yu Guojun, and nearly ten 

mid-level managers from his team.

For Momenta, being a pure software solution provider is no longer enough. Behind its entry into chip development lies the ambition to truly achieve "software-hardware

 integration" and secure its position as a leading intelligent driving chip and solution supplier.

Currently, Momenta’s first self-developed chip is primarily positioned for the mid-range market. It maintains interface compatibility with existing mainstream products while

 offering certain cost advantages. This move not only helps avoid dependency on external chip suppliers in terms of supply chain and technological roadmap but also enhances

 iteration efficiency through deep software-hardware coupling. This strategy of "vertical integration" is far from uncommon in the history of tech industry development—it often

 endows companies with stronger competitive moats and greater value capture capabilities.

                  The autonomous driving chip market is facing a potential disruption.

Momenta's in-house chip development undoubtedly impacts NVIDIA and Qualcomm, with whom it maintains close collaborations.

First, regarding NVIDIA, while the GPU giant's Orin series chips have long dominated the high-end market thanks to their powerful computing power and mature ecosystem, the

 high cost of the Orin solution has been a bottleneck for its adoption. To compound this, NVIDIA is facing pressure from a talent drain. The addition of Wu Xinzhou, Vice President of

 Autonomous Driving at Xpeng Motors, signals the start of NVIDIA's "poaching" of autonomous driving software talent, highlighting its concerns about software capabilities.

Although NVIDIA has long been regarded as a representative of the “hardware-software decoupling” model, it is, in fact, also offering full-stack autonomous driving solutions. So

 far, Mercedes-Benz is its only publicly confirmed customer. In the face of software companies like Momenta expanding into hardware, NVIDIA has been compelled to strengthen its

 own software integration capabilities to counter the impact of the growing “hardware-software integration” trend.

The challenge for Qualcomm is no less significant. Although their collaboration with Momenta is not as close as with NVIDIA, Qualcomm’s emphasis on cockpit-driving fusion

 currently targets precisely the mid-range market. However, Momenta’s self-developed chip offers high interface-level compatibility, allowing automakers to smoothly transition

 from Qualcomm’s solutions to Momenta’s without incurring substantial switching costs. This “seamless replacement” capability is expected to exert considerable competitive

 pressure on Qualcomm in the mid-tier autonomous driving market.

At the same time, local chipmakers are also facing new challenges. 

Horizon Robotics, a leading domestic player in autonomous driving chips, has been defined by its founder and CEO Yu Kai as “a software company in the disguise of a chip

 vendor.”The company launched Horizon HSD, China’s first hardware-software integrated full-stack urban ADAS system. Yet this positioning is now being challenged by a true

 software expert: Momenta, with its in-house chip development, is emerging as a direct competitor, emphasizing the same hardware-software integration strategy.

Horizon Robotics has long sought to strike a balance between hardware and software. However, Momenta’s entry has disrupted this equilibrium. As a company originally focused

 purely on software, Momenta possesses a deeper accumulation of software algorithm expertise—which may surpass that of Horizon. Once Momenta’s chip technology matures,

 Horizon’s differentiated competitive advantage could be significantly weakened.

Another domestic autonomous driving chipmaker, Black Sesame Technologies, follows a different path compared to Horizon. While Horizon covers high-, mid-, and low-end

 markets comprehensively, Black Sesame focuses primarily on the mid- to low-end segment. Horizon emphasizes deep collaboration with automakers to enhance product

 competitiveness, whereas Black Sesame relies more on cost-effective products to attract customers.

That said, Black Sesame’s target customer base partially overlaps with Momenta’s. If Momenta can offer urban NOA solutions at a lower cost, Black Sesame’s value proposition

 may face serious challenges to its perceived “cost-effectiveness.” 

For emerging chip manufacturers like Weijing, Aixin Yuanzhi, and Xingchen, Momenta's entry is a devastating blow. These companies, already competing with established players

 like Horizon Robotics and Black Sesame, now face the added advantage of Momenta's integrated hardware and software capabilities.

Weijing specializes in AI chip design and is just starting out in the intelligent driving sector; Aixin Yuanzhi specializes in edge AI chips and is expanding into the automotive sector; and Xingchen focuses on high-performance computing chips. These companies are relatively weak in terms of technological accumulation, customer base, and financial strength.

 The entry of a software vendor like Momenta, with its extensive mass production experience and customer base, will further squeeze their market share.

More importantly, as a software vendor with extensive mass production experience, Momenta's self-developed chips naturally offer the advantage of deeply optimized hardware

 and software. This integrated capability is difficult for pure chip vendors to replicate, and for emerging vendors with limited resources, this gap can be fatal.

Momenta's entry into the market is more than just a new competitor; it represents a new competitive model: software companies integrating hardware downward. The advantage

 of this model lies in its ability to achieve true hardware and software integration optimization, rather than a simple hardware + software combination.

For local chip manufacturers, this means that simply having a hardware technology advantage is no longer enough. They must achieve breakthroughs in software capabilities or

 find a differentiated market position. Otherwise, as more software companies enter the chip industry, the space for traditional chip manufacturers will further narrow.

                                                 Car companies' self-developed chips bring impact

Under the impact of Momenta's integrated hardware and software solution, automakers that previously developed their own chips are being forced to reconsider the necessity

 and cost-effectiveness of in-house development.

Xpeng Motors is a pioneer in developing its own chips, with its first self-developed intelligent driving chip already successfully deployed in vehicles. Its in-house development

 strategy emphasizes self-sufficiency and differentiation, but the emergence of Momenta's solution raises new questions: when third parties can offer lower-cost, more

 technologically advanced solutions, what is the value of in-house development? For emerging automakers with limited resources, the question of whether the substantial

 investment in developing their own chips is worthwhile becomes a pressing question.

Ideal Auto's in-house chip project is progressing steadily, aiming to achieve cost control and technological independence through long-term investment. However, Momenta's

 ability to further reduce the cost of its entire solution poses a direct challenge to Ideal's in-house development investment-output ratio.

Although NIO has been relatively low-key regarding its in-house chip development, its layout in computing platforms and ADAS technology is also facing challenges. When third-

party solutions with greater cost advantages emerge on the market, NIO needs to reassess the strategic value of in-house development.

There are fundamental differences between in-house development by automakers and Momenta, and these differences determine the nature of the challenges they face.

 Automakers' in-house chips are more like "closed systems," primarily serving the differentiated needs of their own models. The advantage of this model lies in its ability to be

 deeply integrated with the entire vehicle, achieving optimal performance; the disadvantage lies in its limited cost-sharing base, making it difficult to achieve economies of scale.

As a third-party Tier 1 supplier, Momenta's chip + software solutions can serve a wider range of automaker customers. The advantage of this model lies in its ability to reduce costs

 through economies of scale and to serve multiple automakers simultaneously; the potential risk lies in its inability to meet the individual needs of each automaker.

It's worth noting that automakers' pursuit of "hardware-software separation" may shift with Momenta's entry. Early on, automakers opted for hardware-software separation

 primarily to maintain autonomy and avoid supplier lock-in. However, the current situation suggests that simply separating hardware and software may not offer cost advantages.

Smart driving has become a core competitive advantage for electric vehicles, and using a unified supplier solution is indeed difficult to differentiate. However, when suppliers can

 offer more cost-effective solutions, automakers need to strike a balance between differentiation and cost.

In the OTA era, competition between vehicles is a continuous battle spanning the entire lifecycle. While hardware-software separation does allow automakers to quickly respond

 to market changes, whether this flexibility justifies the enormous investment in in-house development warrants reassessment.

For automakers that have invested heavily in in-house chip development but haven't seen significant results, the emergence of Momenta's solution may be a significant turning

 point. They need to reconsider: Can in-house chips truly offer sufficient differentiation? Is the opportunity cost of in-house development excessive? Is it possible to achieve

 "quasi-in-house development" through collaboration with third parties? This kind of thinking may lead to a readjustment of the self-research strategies of automobile companies,

 from comprehensive self-research to self-research of key links, or from independent self-research to cooperative self-research.

                                     Strategic anxiety under the trend of software and hardware integration

The challenges facing traditional Tier 1 suppliers may be the most complex and far-reaching, as Momenta's entry into the market represents more than just a technological

 competition; it also represents a fundamentally new business model challenge.

Huawei's ADS solutions for intelligent driving demonstrate strong technical capabilities, but they still face compliance restrictions and business model challenges. Momenta's

 integrated hardware and software solution offers a more flexible alternative, particularly for automakers hesitant about partnering with Huawei.

However, Huawei may also see opportunities in this. Momenta's successful entry into the chip market demonstrates the feasibility of software companies expanding into hardware, providing market validation for Huawei to further integrate its software and hardware resources. Huawei's technological expertise in 5G, operating systems, and cloud services gives it a unique advantage in building integrated hardware and software solutions.

Bosch, a traditional Tier 1 giant, despite its clear advantages in compliance and globalization, has been relatively slow to advance advanced intelligent driving solutions. Early

 ADAS solutions were primarily based on integrated hardware and software. While the assisted driving hardware and software solutions offered by manufacturers like Bosch and

 Mobileye may not offer high-end hardware specifications, they are comparable in performance in traditional areas like AEB and ACC.

However, these traditional integrated hardware and software solutions are now being abandoned by emerging players and some traditional automakers. This isn't simply due to

 concerns about "losing their core value," but more importantly, the need for differentiation in the intelligent driving era. Bosch needs to rethink how to maintain the advantages

 of integrated hardware and software while meeting automakers' demands for differentiation and autonomy.

Mobileye's experience also provides important insights for the entire industry. As an early leader in the ADAS field, Mobileye lost many customers due to its failure to promptly

 implement a "hardware and software decoupling" solution. OEMs want to maintain control of software, a view reinforced by SAIC Chairman Chen Hong's "soul theory."

But now, Mobileye is embracing integrated hardware and software again. In May of this year, Mobileye and Porsche reached a cooperation agreement to provide Porsche with its

 SuperVision driver assistance system, which includes both software and hardware. This change reflects the complexity of market demands: differentiation and cost advantages,

 autonomy and technical support.

It's worth noting that autonomous driving companies aren't completely "avoiding hardware." Pony.ai also offers an autonomous driving domain controller branded "Fangzai" for

 its passenger car business. While the core SoC chip still uses products from manufacturers like NVIDIA and Horizon Robotics, this exploration demonstrates the trend of software

 companies expanding into hardware.

Underlying this trend lies a correction to the overly extreme understanding of "hardware-software separation." As Horizon Robotics President Chen Liming said, "Software-

hardware separation and hardware-software integration are contradictory entities, both contradictory and unified." The key lies in achieving efficient collaboration through the

 integration of software and hardware, while also isolating upper-layer applications through middleware.

Automakers are undoubtedly the biggest beneficiaries of this industrial transformation. Momenta's proprietary chips bring them multiple benefits:

First, significant cost reductions. The cost of the urban NOA solution has been further reduced, and this price point has enabled the rapid adoption of intelligent driving features in

 mid- and low-end vehicles, significantly expanding market coverage.

Secondly, the efficiency gains from hardware and software integration are significant. Traditionally, software vendors have had to adapt to hardware platforms from different chip

 manufacturers, and automakers have had to coordinate collaboration across multiple suppliers. Momenta's integrated solution reduces adaptation costs, eases communication

 complexity, and accelerates product iteration.

Third, it offers a faster implementation cycle. Through its compatible design with Qualcomm interfaces, automakers can quickly switch solutions without significantly adjusting

 existing hardware architectures, significantly shortening vehicle development cycles.

Automakers like Zhiji and BMW, which have already established partnerships with Momenta, will be the first to reap the benefits of this technological breakthrough. At the same

 time, domestic brands with a strong focus on cost control will also gain new competitive advantages.

                                                             Momenta's ambition and industry watershed

Despite a seemingly bright future, Momenta's chip development journey remains fraught with challenges.

On a technical level, automotive-grade chip certification standards are extremely stringent, and safety requirements are stringent. From chip design to full-scale mass production,

 there's a lengthy verification and optimization process. Mistakes at any stage could impact the entire project's progress.

On a commercial level, mass production stability and the pace of customer volume expansion are key challenges. As a core automotive safety component, building customer trust

 in suppliers of intelligent driving systems takes time. Momenta must demonstrate its capabilities in large-scale production and quality control while maintaining technological advancement.

On a competitive level, the counterattack from international giants cannot be underestimated. Faced with challenges from emerging competitors, Nvidia and Qualcomm are likely

 to respond through price cuts, technology upgrades, or deeper collaboration. Such a counterattack strategy could compress Momenta's time window and increase the difficulty

 of its market breakthrough.

In conclusion, the successful power-on of Momenta’s self-developed chip marks a critical transition from a pure software provider to an integrated hardware-software player.

 This achievement represents not only a technological breakthrough but also a strategic realignment. By mastering the core chip segment, Momenta is poised to gain greater

 influence and higher value capture within the autonomous driving industry chain.

The implications of this shift are far-reaching. For international giants like NVIDIA and Qualcomm, competition in the mid-to-high-end market will intensify. Domestic chipmakers

 such as Horizon Robotics and Black Sesame will face mounting pressure to differentiate. Automakers like XPeng and Li Auto, which have invested in in-house chip development,

 will need to reassess the cost-benefit equation of their strategies. Meanwhile, established Tier‑1 suppliers like Huawei and Bosch must accelerate business model innovation to

 keep pace.

That said, all these potential outcomes hinge on one critical condition: whether Momenta can achieve mass production at scale. The barriers to entry—both technological and

 commercial—remain high in the autonomous driving chip sector, and the path from technical validation to market success is fraught with uncertainty.

Nevertheless, Momenta has taken this decisive step, and a watershed moment in the industry is already taking shape. Against the backdrop of rapidly proliferating intelligent

 driving technology, those who can strike the optimal balance between cost, performance, and ecosystem integration will seize the initiative in this industrial transformation. For

 the entire sector, this presents both challenges and opportunities. Whether Momenta’s ambition is realized will significantly shape the trajectory of the autonomous driving

 industry in the years to come.

2025-08-22