(Yicai) Aug. 24 -- Wu Xinzhou, former head of autonomous driving at Chinese electric automaker Xpeng Motors, has joined US chip giant Nvidia. 

Xpeng’s Chief Executive Officer He Xiaopeng posted a photo of himself with Wu and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Weibo today, saying that there will be deeper cooperation between the two companies in the future.

Wu later reposted it on Weibo, saying “tomorrow is my first day working in Nvidia. Thanks to Xiaopeng for personally sending me to Huang. Huang said that I would still work for Xiaopeng, but I would be paid by him.”

Wu joined Xpeng in 2019 having previously worked for Qualcomm. He has in-depth experience in automatic driving, precise positioning and mapping, car networking, communications and wireless networks.

After Wu joined the company, he reorganized Xpeng’s automatic driving architecture, and developed an intelligent driving system based on Nvidia’s Xavier platform. The company’s G9 model later switched to Nvidia's Drive Orin platform.

Guangzhou-based Xpeng said it had appointed Li Liyun to take over its autonomous driving team.

Nvidia’s shipments accounted for almost 83 percent of the global market for autonomous driving chips last year, according to US business consultants Frost & Sullivan.

However, revenue is still stalling at Nvidia's auto business. Its trading report released yesterday showed that the auto unit’s revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2024 was just USD253 million, while Nvidia’s total income reached a record USD13.5 billion.

The chip giant said that Drive Orin is powering the new Xpeng G6 Coupe's intelligent advanced driver assistance system, and also said that it has partnered with MediaTek to develop vehicle infotainment systems.

Editor: Tom Litting