The transition from smartphones to smart vehicles has reached a fever pitch in China, punctuated by the high-profile career pivot of Zhao Ming. As the former CEO of Honor, Zhao is credited with pulling the handset brand from a three-percent market share nadir to the top of the Chinese market. Now, two months into his tenure as Co-Chairman of Qianli Technology, Zhao is signaling that the next great battlefield is not the pocket, but the cockpit. His arrival at Qianli—the tech-forward evolution of Lifan Technology—marks a significant talent migration from the mature mobile industry to the volatile frontier of intelligent driving.
Zhao’s new venture is defined by a 'dual-core' leadership structure that pairs his commercial and organizational expertise with the technical vision of Yin Qi, a prodigy from the renowned 'Yao Class' at Tsinghua University and founder of AI unicorn Megvii. While Yin focuses on the 'One Brain' architecture and technical strategy, Zhao acts as the 'commercial navigator,' tasked with turning cutting-edge algorithms into a scalable, profitable business model. This partnership reflects a broader trend in the Chinese automotive sector: the realization that winning the EV race now requires a fusion of traditional manufacturing discipline and the rapid-fire iteration of the software world.
At the heart of Zhao’s strategy is a rejection of the 'brute force' approach to AI development. He argues that the future of smart driving belongs to those who utilize Large Language Models (LLMs) with the highest efficiency, rather than those who simply deploy the most capital or personnel. By adopting a 'Small Expert Team + Large Engineering Discipline' model, Qianli aims to emulate the lean efficiency of early OpenAI teams. The goal is to move beyond the current landscape of 'Seven Kings'—a crowded field including Huawei’s Yinwang and Horizon Robotics—by focusing on technical routes that minimize strategic errors in model evolution.
Qianli’s vision extends beyond simple assisted driving to what Zhao calls 'Intelligent Agents.' Under a 'One Brain, One OS, One Agent' framework, the car is reimagined as an active participant in the journey, capable of understanding passenger emotions, predicting driving intentions, and executing complex decisions autonomously. This strategic shift aims to move the conversation from SAE levels (L2 to L4) to a reality where the vehicle functions as a sentient companion, a move that Zhao believes will eventually compel consumers to pay for the 'intelligence' rather than just the hardware.
Despite the lofty ambitions, the financial reality remains a steep mountain to climb. Qianli’s 2025 annual report shows that while manufacturing revenue reached nearly 10 billion yuan, its technology and smart driving services accounted for less than 4% of total income. Zhao acknowledges that there is no 'newbie protection period' in the auto industry, yet he remains undeterred. The race is currently in a state of chaotic competition, and for Zhao, the success of his second career depends on proving that the commercial logic that conquered the smartphone world can be successfully transplanted to the four-wheeled computers of the future.