On July 17, 2026, Yin Qi, Chairman of Qianli Technology and Stepfunctio Star, delivered a speech titled "When Intelligent Agents Enter the Physical World" at the WAIC opening ceremony:

"When intelligent agents enter the physical world, everyone's possibilities will be amplified tenfold."

Now, Yin Qi's tenfold opportunity is about to materialize, with Geely handing him a trump card.

According to 36Kr Auto, Volvo is preparing its first D-segment (large luxury) executive sedan in a century, internally codenamed 556, to compete with the Zunjie S800. To ensure its success, Geely has paused similar projects under Galaxy, Lynk & Co, and Zeekr.

The Zunjie S800 is the industry's sole million-unit sales champion in its class, with cumulative deliveries exceeding 19,000 units in 13 months since its launch. In December 2025 alone, it sold 4,376 units, far surpassing the Maybach S-Class and BMW 7 Series in cumulative sales.

For such a high-priority luxury project, Geely's Chinese team will handle the three-electric system development, vehicle engineering, and supply chain. Two critical responsibilities are likely entrusted to Yin Qi.

First, Volvo plans to adopt the Qianli Haohan G-ASD intelligent driving solution jointly developed by Geely and Qianli Technology, expected to debut in 2027. The D-segment 556 will likely use the top-tier H9 version of Qianli Haohan.

Second, while Volvo uses its proprietary Volvo Car UX for intelligent cockpits, the success of the Super Eva cockpit-driving agent launched by Geely, Stepfunctio Star, and Qianli Technology in the Zeekr 8X may lead Volvo 556 to adopt it.

The intersection of these two clues is Yin Qi himself. According to his plan, Stepfunctio Star will serve as the "brain" (models, intelligent agents) for vehicles, while Qianli Technology will provide the "body" (implementation of intelligent driving solutions). The Volvo 556 will nourish both entities.

This aligns with Yin Qi's statement at WAIC: "In the era of intelligent agents, terminals will bring intelligence into the physical world, and cars will become mobile intelligent spaces... Future terminal competition will hinge on enabling intelligent agents to better perceive their environment and take action."

According to Yin Qi's 2026 strategic plan for both companies, Stepfunctio Star aims to rejoin the top tier of foundational model providers while incubating a core AI hardware product. Qianli Technology targets one million intelligent driving installations in vehicles.

The Volvo 556 is the linchpin for these three strategic objectives. When played, it must make a significant impact.

Volvo Bolsters Luxury Credentials

From a data perspective, Yin Qi has achieved remarkable success with Qianli Intelligent Driving.

In just half a year, Qianli Intelligent Driving has surpassed half of its KPI targets. By July 2026, Qianli Technology had installed its ASD intelligent driving system in over 500,000 vehicles, covering 19 models from Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Galaxy, and Smart.

In May 2026, Qianli Technology released its Comprehensive Travel Report. The data showed that Qianli Haohan had accumulated 1.38 billion kilometers of assisted driving miles and 16.99 million hours of total assisted driving time.

The report concluded that Qianli Haohan's intelligent assisted driving had transitioned from a niche feature to a standard configuration for daily family travel.

According to Zhao Ming, Co-Chairman of Qianli Technology, the company aims to exceed one million intelligent driving installations by the end of 2026, 2.7 million by 2027, and 8 million by 2028, becoming one of the world's largest intelligent driving solution providers.

However, a closer look at its client list reveals a lack of luxury brands.

On the cover of Qianli Haohan's Comprehensive Travel Report, Qianli Technology featured three representative models: the Geely Galaxy M9, Geely Lynk & Co 900, and Zeekr 9X, equipped with Qianli Haohan H5, H7, and H9 solutions, respectively.

These three models span different price ranges but share one commonality: they are all Geely brands.

Moreover, all 460,000 installations of Qianli Haohan are within the Geely ecosystem. Zeekr's main models are priced between ¥250,000 and ¥500,000, Lynk & Co between ¥150,000 and ¥300,000, and Geely Galaxy between ¥100,000 and ¥250,000—all targeting the mass market. Their global luxury market recognition pales in comparison to BBA or Volvo.

In contrast, Momenta has embedded its technology into core models of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi, spanning L2 to L4 and mass-market to flagship vehicles. Huawei ADS has already established a comprehensive layout across multiple brands and even restricts the expansion of its "Jie" series brands.

For Qianli Technology, the Volvo 556 is a critical card. Volvo's brand equity is synonymous with safety. When launching its first production vehicle with LiDAR, Volvo chose to release the EX90 in a non-intelligent driving version rather than enable intelligent driving features without safety verification.

Now, the same stringent standards apply to Qianli Haohan. If Qianli Haohan passes Volvo's safety verification and European regulatory requirements, it will gain not just a model designation but also a safety pass to compete in the luxury market alongside Huawei ADS and Momenta.

Stepfunctio Star equally needs this opportunity.

Similar to Qianli Haohan's predicament, the Super Eva, jointly developed by Stepfunctio Star, is currently only available in the Zeekr 8X, priced at just ¥329,800.

On this mid-to-large electric SUV, Super Eva is just one aspect of the cockpit experience and cannot yet rival Huawei ADS as a direct driver of consumer demand.

In other words, while Qianli Haohan and Super Eva have proven their affordability and functionality in mass-market models, their high-end market value remains unproven.

More realistically, both Stepfunctio Star and Qianli Technology's automotive clients are heavily concentrated within the Geely ecosystem.

The Galaxy M9 incorporates Stepfunctio Star's voice large model, the Zeekr 8X debuts Super Eva, and Tencent Cloud has strategic cooperation (strategically partnered) with Stepfunctio Star to accelerate large model integration. However, none of these partnerships were independently secured from premium brands like BMW, Audi, or BYD.

Yin Qi needs a luxury brand as a market entry point, which is why Geely is leveraging Volvo to support him.

A Critical Battle Amid Transition

For Qianli Technology, currently undergoing significant personnel changes and strategic transformation, securing the Volvo 556 project is a pivotal battle.

According to New Intelligence Driving, Du Mingbo, head of algorithm development, and Wang Zhen, head of planning and control, have left Qianli Technology to join Chongqing Seres Phoenix Intelligence Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. Both were key figures responsible for implementing Qianli Technology's L2-level mass-production intelligent driving technology.

This exodus is tied to Qianli Technology's strategic shift.

In February 2026, former Honor CEO Zhao Ming joined Qianli Technology as Co-Chairman, marking a full pivot toward AI commercialization. The goals of one million intelligent driving installations and joining the industry's top tier were set during this phase.

Early on, Qianli Technology focused on technological ideals. Under its dual-CEO structure, Chen Qi, former head of autonomous driving R&D at Huawei's automotive BU, oversaw technology development, while Wang Jun, former president of Huawei's automotive BU, led commercialization efforts. The company aimed to rival Huawei's HiCar by integrating teams from Zeekr Intelligent Driving, Geely Research Institute's Intelligent Driving Division, and Megvii's Maichi Intelligent Driving.

As of March 31, 2026, Qianli Intelligent Driving had installed its system in 460,000 vehicles, with a 92% activation rate for assisted driving. While these figures appear impressive, nearly all orders came from Geely brands.

Zhao Ming's mandate is to scale from 1 to N. During his tenure at Honor, he rebuilt the supply chain and distribution network, transforming a marginal brand with less than 3% market share into a domestic leader.

With Zhao Ming's arrival, Qianli Technology's organizational structure evolved: Megvii's Yin Qi leads AI strategy, Honor's Zhao Ming oversees commercialization, and President Wang Jun manages operational details. The group's strategy shifted from being an internal technology supplier for Geely to becoming a global top-tier intelligent driving solution provider akin to Huawei ADS.

Within Qianli Technology, Du Mingbo and Wang Zhen hailed from Zeekr's intelligent driving team, specializing in L2 mass production, while CTO Yang Mu led Megvii's team focusing on L4 pre-research.

As resources tilt (tilted) toward commercialization, the influence of Zeekr's L2 mass-production veterans rapidly declined.

At Qianli Technology's AI Strategy and Product Launch on April 22, 2026, Co-Chairman Zhao Ming detailed the group's strategy: "Use an L4 architecture to guide L2 development, unifying L4 and L2 architectures."

In other words, Zeekr's expertise lies in enhancing L2 systems through rule-based programming across perception, decision-making, and control, continuously optimizing assisted driving toward full autonomy while prioritizing cost-effectiveness and reliability.

Qianli Technology, however, opted for L4 degradation: defining a future architecture with an AI large model-driven "superbrain" processing sensor data to determine vehicle actions, then cascading these capabilities to all L2 mass-production models, emphasizing system-driven driving with absolute safety across all scenarios.

Under this approach, the weight of L2 architectures familiar to mass-production veterans was significantly reduced.

Consequently, Qianli Technology partnered with BAIC to launch the new brand Youxin while sidelining core veterans. Against this backdrop, CEO Chen Qi, algorithm head Du Mingbo, and planning and control head Wang Zhen Resignation one after another (successively resigned).

The new power structure places Megvii in charge of Qianli Intelligent Driving, with Yin Qi wielding both Stepfunctio Star and Qianli Haohan as he pursues a three-pronged strategy encompassing intelligent driving, intelligent cockpits, and Robotaxi services.

This is a high-stakes gamble on self-revolution, trading short-term personnel turmoil for long-term strategic independence. The only issue is that the intelligent driving industry is already a winner-takes-all market.

China Association of Automobile Manufacturers data shows that from January to November 2025, Momenta dominated 61% of the domestic third-party urban NOA (Navigation on Autopilot) market, while Huawei's HI mode accounted for nearly 20%, leaving other players with a combined 19%.

This mirrors the situation Honor faced during its independence: fierce industry competition, limited space for latecomers, and elimination rounds beginning before the brand even secures a seat at the table.

Outmaneuvering Huawei HarmonyOS: Yin Qi Needs More Cards

The Volvo 556's competition with the Zunjie S800 is not just about brands but about two technological stacks:

Qianli Haohan versus Huawei ADS, and Super Eva versus HarmonyOS Cockpit.

From a core intelligent driving experience perspective, the Volvo 556 will likely feature Qianli Haohan's top-tier H9 solution, equipped with dual Thor U chips, 1,400 TOPS of total computing power, five LiDAR sensors, 13 cameras, and five 4D millimeter-wave radars.

Compared to the Zunjie S800's Huawei ADS 4.1, which boasts four LiDAR sensors, 13 millimeter-wave radars, 11 high-definition cameras, and 1,200 TOPS of computing power, Qianli Haohan is not at a disadvantage.

The true differentiator lies in data volume.

On July 16, 2026, Huawei Intelligent Automotive BU reported that as of June 30, 2026, Huawei ADS had accumulated 12.35 billion kilometers of assisted driving miles and 160 million hours of assisted driving time, with 97.5% of users actively engaging the system.

In contrast, according to Qianli Haohan's Comprehensive Travel Report released in May 2026, as of May 10, the system had accumulated 1.38 billion kilometers of assisted driving miles and 16.99 million hours of total time across Geely, Zeekr, and Lynk & Co models.

Compared to Huawei ADS, Qianli Haohan's cumulative data is roughly one-ninth the volume. This disparity results in vastly different coverage densities for long-tail scenarios. Huawei encounters far more extreme corner cases daily, such as blind-spot pedestrians, overturned trucks, and impromptu detours in construction zones, than Qianli Haohan.

This gap ultimately affects user experience. Some vehicle owners have described Qianli Haohan as "nerve-wracking" to City Image: "I took over control a few times in the city and stopped using it afterward. It's too tense—you have to stay vigilant at all times."

The fundamental difference is that Huawei ADS has undergone market validation, while Qianli Haohan has not.

Huawei ADS's mileage data comes from 1.7 million equipped vehicles across brands like Zunjie, Aito, Xiangjie, Zhijie, Avatr, Arcfox, and Voyah. Momenta's 200+ design wins are all market-driven selections.

In May 2026, Geely Central Research Institute transferred hundreds of intelligent driving team members to Qianli Technology. The group's strategy is for Qianli Haohan to serve core Geely clients while Qianli Intelligent Driving expands to external customers.

Currently, Qianli Intelligent Driving has secured collaborations with five BAIC models and the new automotive brand Youxin, along with the all-new Smart #6 and ongoing partnerships with Audi, Changan, and Chery. While this seems promising, no market-validated bestsellers exist yet. In 2025, approximately 70% of its intelligent driving installations came from Geely brands like Zeekr and Lynk & Co.

In an industry where intelligent driving competition is widely expected to conclude within the year, leaving only three winners, system-driven volume cannot replace market-validated trust.