Gasgoo Munich-According to an exclusive report by LatePost, NIO CEO Li Bin announced at an internal meeting that Ren Shaoqing, the company’s head of intelligent driving, has founded an independent company. The new entity focuses on physical AI foundation models and embodied intelligence. NIO will invest as a strategic shareholder and deepen cooperation. Ren will retain his role as head of NIO’s autonomous driving business.
On the surface, NIO is "releasing" a core figure in its autonomous driving division. However, deeper analysis reveals a precise strategic layout.
Why is NIO doing this?
Why let the top autonomous driving executive explore embodied intelligence? The answer lies in technology. Smart driving and embodied intelligence share deep technical roots. Ren is the ideal practitioner for this migration.
Since joining NIO in 2020, he has led his team through the evolution of autonomous driving algorithms. The team moved from traditional modular approaches to end-to-end architectures and world models. NIO began world model R&D in 2023. By 2024, Ren had unveiled NWM, the industry’s first world model applied to intelligent assisted driving.
Ren has repeatedly emphasized that world models are a foundational paradigm shared by autonomous driving and robotics. Capabilities such as spatiotemporal cognition, long-horizon reasoning, and closed-loop optimization, accumulated on the vehicle side, can be directly transferred to physical AI and embodied intelligence scenarios.
Image Source: NIO
Four months ago, Li publicly addressed NIO’s positioning on embodied intelligence during an interview.
Discussing the rush of automakers into robotics, Li said it is a natural choice. The technology stacks are largely the same, and capability models are similar. This trend is not limited to Chinese companies; global automakers are actively exploring this space.
He added that NIO’s focus for the foreseeable future remains on the automotive business.
Now, through strategic investment, NIO keeps Ren at the helm of its autonomous driving operations. This move secures an early position in the new embodied intelligence track.
It is understood that NIO has confirmed Ren will continue as head of intelligent driving. Related work will proceed as planned.
Embodied intelligence is in its infancy, and technical paths remain unsettled. It requires long-cycle R&D investment and ample room for trial and error. NIO, having just completed a financial turnaround, would face massive cost pressure if it incubated a full robotics business in-house.
By strategically investing in an independent startup, the new entity can attract external capital and cross-industry talent. It enjoys greater operational freedom. For NIO, this model helps consolidate internal resources and focus strength on the core autonomous driving business.
While securing talent, NIO has also chosen a different financial path. It avoids heavy asset investment and acts only as a strategic shareholder.
Holding the line on autonomous driving while positioning early for next-generation physical AI technology is NIO’s strategic intent.
More Than Just One Investment
NIO’s moves in embodied intelligence are connecting the dots. Covering chips, capital, and talent, the company is building a multi-layered, three-dimensional layout.
In June 2025, NIO established chip subsidiary Shenji. It positions the subsidiary as a full-scenario chip enterprise covering autonomous driving, embodied intelligence, and agent reasoning. Since its inception, Shenji has completed nearly 3 billion yuan in financing. This signals capital market confidence in its technical roadmap.
At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in July 2026, Shenji released the "Ruidong" embodied intelligence development platform. It is equipped with the 5nm automotive-grade NX9031U chip. The platform’s core value lies in its ability to transfer NIO’s technological accumulation. This includes vehicle perception, real-time control, and decision planning directly to embodied intelligence scenarios like humanoid robots.
This means NIO’s investment in autonomous driving chips is generating synergies. One investment serves multiple purposes, as vehicle and robotics ends share the same chip architecture and software ecosystem.
Image Source: NIO
Li previously revealed that Shenji chips "have attracted external customers." These include automotive peers, autonomous logistics vehicles, and even embodied intelligence companies. The "breakout" of the chip business is an early result of NIO’s strategy: learn first, enter later.
Through its NIO Capital arm, NIO has secured key positions in the embodied intelligence track. Notably, it led the Series A financing of embodied intelligence company Yuanli Lingji. It also participated in industrial mobile robotics firm Standard Robots to tap into smart manufacturing logistics. Additionally, it invested in LimX Dynamics.
These investments cover the entire industrial chain. From core components and motion control to complete machine applications, they form a complete investment chain of "components—body—scenarios."
NIO’s strategic investment in Ren’s new company represents a "distributed incubation" strategy. Through capital ties, NIO converts top AI talent who might have otherwise left into an external innovation engine. It leverages a controlled investment to secure a foothold in the frontier embodied intelligence track.
Supported by chips, capital, and talent, NIO has preliminarily built a pan-robotic ecosystem closed loop. This loop encompasses "vehicle autonomous driving—robotics chips—embodied machines—core components."
Industry insiders note that combining talent retention with external innovation allows the company to keep key players. It uses market mechanisms to explore the future of AI. This could become a new model for automakers laying out cutting-edge technology.
Conclusion
NIO’s steps may seem contradictory, but they are consistent in essence. The company uses strategic investment to "learn" and external incubation to "watch and wait."
As autonomous driving competition enters the era of world models and end-to-end architectures, embodied intelligence is seen as the next core battlefield. It represents AI interaction with the physical world.
With one "release," NIO gained an "anchor." It secures the present of autonomous driving while betting on the future of robotics. The starting point for all this may well be Li’s judgment at the China EV 100 Forum. He admitted it is the right track but insisted that the time to enter has not yet come.
