With Gasgoo Daily, we will offer daily important automotive news in China. For those we have reported, the title of the piece will include a hyperlink, which will provide detailed information.
Lei Jun, Founder and CEO of Xiaomi, has announced that the company plans to invest CNY 200 billion (about USD 28 billion) in research and development over the next five years, signaling an aggressive push to strengthen its core technologies across multiple product lines.
In a post shared on social media on January 8, Lei said the company had not only fulfilled but exceeded its previous commitment to invest CNY 100 billion in core technology research over the past five years, with actual spending reaching roughly CNY 105 billion. Looking ahead, the company is now setting a much higher target, pledging CNY 200 billion in R&D spending over the next five-year period. According to Lei, this investment cycle could culminate in a major technological leap by 2026. As early as this year, Xiaomi expects to integrate its in-house semiconductor, operating system, and large-scale AI model into a single consumer device, while also advancing its robotics initiatives.
The announcement followed Xiaomi Group's annual technology awards ceremony, which was held on January 7 and is designed to recognize breakthroughs across the company's engineering teams.
In his closing remarks at the event, Lei noted that this year's awards attracted the largest number of competing projects in the program's history, with a strong concentration on foundational technologies such as chips, smartphones, intelligent vehicles, AI, and advanced materials. He added that artificial intelligence has become deeply embedded in Xiaomi's R&D process, with roughly two-thirds of the winning projects heavily relying on AI to re-engineer existing workflows and development approaches.
Horizon Robotics increases stake in MINIEYE as partners accelerate L4 autonomous logistics push
Horizon Robotics has increased its equity stake in MINIEYE, reinforcing a strategic partnership aimed at accelerating the commercialization of Level 4 autonomous logistics vehicles.
In an announcement released on January 8, 2026, MINIEYE said its cornerstone investor, Horizon Together Holding Ltd., had recently acquired 688,200 H-shares of the company on the open market. Horizon Together Holding is a wholly owned subsidiary of Horizon Robotics, one of China's leading developers of automotive-grade AI chips and autonomous driving solutions.
The stake increase comes amid a series of confidence-boosting measures unveiled by MINIEYE this week, including a CNY 200 million share buyback program, an extension of the lock-up period for major shareholders, and multiple share purchases by chairman Liu Guoqing. Together, these moves are intended to underline management's long-term commitment to the company's growth trajectory.
According to the announcement, Horizon Robotics's decision to increase its holdings is rooted in years of close collaboration between the two companies and reflects its confidence in MINIEYE's long-term business prospects. Horizon Robotics also emphasized MINIEYE's strategic role within its broader technology ecosystem, noting that both sides plan to deepen cooperation through mutual technology and resource sharing to speed up the rollout of Level 4 driverless logistics vehicles.
MINIEYE's board said the additional investment from Horizon Robotics sends a clear signal of confidence in the company's future outlook and its long-term development potential, particularly as autonomous logistics emerges as a key application scenario for advanced self-driving technologies in China.
RoboSense sets new monthly delivery record as lidar shipments top 180,000 units in December 2025
RoboSense has reported a new monthly high for lidar deliveries, with shipments in December 2025 surpassing 180,000 units, marking another milestone for China's rapidly scaling intelligent sensing supplier.
According to information released on January 8, RoboSense said deliveries of its digital lidar products exceeded 180,000 units in December 2025 alone, extending a streak of record-breaking monthly volumes. The company attributed the momentum to advances in its fully in-house chip technologies, alongside steady expansion into a wider range of application scenarios spanning both automotive and non-automotive markets.
At the core of this growth is what RoboSense describes as a rare end-to-end self-developed chip architecture covering signal emission, reception, and processing, which has obtained AEC-Q automotive-grade certification. The company's SPAD-SoC sensor design, combined with a two-dimensional addressable VCSEL architecture, significantly simplifies system complexity while improving performance, reliability, and manufacturability — key requirements for large-scale vehicle integration.
Built on this technical foundation, RoboSense has established a digital lidar product portfolio that it says is currently the only solution in the industry to achieve true mass production at scale. These sensors are now being deployed across a broad spectrum of use cases, ranging from advanced driver-assistance systems and robotaxis to autonomous delivery vehicles and robotics, positioning lidar as a central enabler of intelligent mobility and automation.
