The robot company operates independently.

Renn Shaoqing, head of NIO’s intelligent driving, has a second identity.

Wall Street Insights learned that on August 24, at an all-staff meeting on intelligent driving, NIO CEO Li Bin announced that Renn Shaoqing has already founded an independent company focused on physical AI foundation models and embodied intelligence. NIO will make a strategic investment and collaborate with the new company.

Renn Shaoqing has not left his job. A person close to NIO said that Renn Shaoqing will continue to be in overall charge of NIO’s smart driving, with his position and responsibilities unchanged.

This is a rare arrangement. Renn Shaoqing becomes the founder of an independent company while still overseeing one of NIO’s most core technology businesses.

Ren Shaoqing joined NIO in 2020, promoting its high-level intelligent driving from traditional modular solutions toward end-to-end systems and world models, and participating in the mass production rollout of the Shenji NX9031 intelligent driving chip. NIO launched world model R&D in 2023, and began mass production and rollouts in 2025. In June this year, the latest version covered more than 700,000 users.

Both intelligent driving and embodied intelligence need to solve how machines sense the environment, predict changes, and take actions. Techniques such as world models and reinforcement learning can share research methodologies. However, when moving from cars to robots, it’s also necessary to fill in gaps related to the hardware of the body, operation data, supply chains, and application scenarios.

A person close to NIO’s management told Wall Street Insight on August 25 that NIO has long been focused on cutting-edge AI technologies, and it builds its industry layout with equal emphasis on independent R&D and open cooperation. In recent years, NIO has continued to invest in key technology areas such as chips and operating systems, while also supporting innovative companies in areas including embodied intelligence, algorithmic models, intelligent hardware, new energy, and compute infrastructure through strategic partnerships and industrial collaboration.

This sets the boundary of NIO’s involvement with robots.

Chips, operating systems, and intelligent driving directly determine the in-vehicle experience. NIO still keeps these capabilities in-house. Robot R&D has a long cycle, and the product form and scale of revenue are not yet certain. NIO chooses to participate through investment and cooperation rather than rolling out a brand-new business that would require sustained investment.

Around robots, the investment ecosystem related to NIO has been laid out in advance. Public information from NIO Capital shows that since 2025, it has successively supported funding for Jujiding Power, led the Series A investment in Yuanli Lingji, and in February this year it also led the Pre-B round investment in Linghou Robotics. These projects extend investment reach from the robot itself and motion control to embodied foundation models, vision, and joint component parts. They already cover multiple links in embodied intelligence.

NIO’s own clearer connection point to robotics is the Shenji chip. In May this year, Li Bin said that both intelligent driving chips and embodied intelligence chips are edge inference chips. After Shenji develops independently, it will not only serve cars, but will also seek customers in robotics, logistics, and other edge-inference scenarios.

Li Bin had already indicated this direction earlier. In November 2025, at a communication meeting after NIO’s third-quarter earnings report, he said that robots have a future, but NIO would not build them itself; instead, it would more likely participate through investment and cooperation. At the time, he said that compared with personally stepping in, NIO cares more about “whose robot will use our chips.”

For NIO, which is currently once again emphasizing profitability and investment returns, this arrangement resolves a real contradiction: robots may be a natural extension of car intelligence, but before the products and revenues are clearly defined, putting them inside the company would once again lengthen the investment front. By participating as a strategic investor, at least, it doesn’t have to be borne entirely by the vehicle company—from model R&D to robot mass production.

Now, Ren Shaoqing’s new company makes this path more concrete: startups can raise external funding, recruit talent, and look for applications with more customers; NIO, on the other hand, through equity and technology cooperation, maintains its connection with the next generation of physical AI.

This also matches NIO’s recent operating approach. In February this year, Shenji, which is responsible for its intelligent driving chip business, brought in RMB 2.257 billion in external funding. NIO continued to hold 62.7% controlling interest and consolidated the financial statements.

NIO has gradually allowed some of its high-investment technical business to obtain independent financing and valuation, rather than relying entirely on investment from its vehicle business.

Valuation comes quickly; business moves much more slowly. For a new company spun out from NIO, someone has to foot the bill. After Ren Shaoqing started his business, it was decided whether this AI entry point has real value—because NIO’s autonomous driving research and development would not be fragmented, and a series of NIO’s previous initiatives could be aligned and connected with it.

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