Xpeng will spend RMB 3.5 billion ($480 million) in 2024 on R&D of AI technology around smart driving and recruit 4,000 new professionals.

Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV) will invest billions of yuan and recruit thousands of engineers this year to further advance its capabilities in smart driving.

By 2025, Xpeng will enable L4-like smart driving experiences in China, the electric vehicle (EV) maker's chairman and CEO announced at an AI Day event in Beijing today.

Xpeng is testing end-to-end capabilities of XNGP (Xpeng navigation guided pilot) globally as the company's smart driving technology begins to go global, Mr. He said.

The company will spend RMB 3.5 billion ($480 million) in 2024 on research and development of AI technology around smart driving and recruit 4,000 new professionals, he said.

Next, Xpeng will invest more than RMB 700 million a year in computing power and AI training, Mr. He said.

Xpeng's end-to-end large model is capable of iterating once every 2 days, and will improve smart driving capabilities by 30 times in the next 18 months, he said.

By the third quarter of 2024, Xpeng's smart driving system will be available on all roads in China, he said.

Xpeng hopes that its increased bet on AI will help it rapidly improve its smart driving capabilities.

AI technology will disrupt the original speed of evolution and iteration of smart cars, Mr. He said at today's launch, adding that it can learn human intelligence and mimic the logic of human thinking and decision-making.

AI can replace the traditional iteration of rules through manual handwritten algorithms with end-to-end data-driven algorithms for iteration, thus allowing smart cars to enter the AI era of accelerated evolution, Mr. He said.

Xpeng announced at today's event that it will begin pushing the AI Tianji system starting immediately, covering all models currently sold by the company.

Tianji is the industry's first operating system to fully utilize AI technology for smart cockpits and smart driving, enabling users to use it for long periods of time without lagging, said Yu Tong, head of intelligent experience at Xpeng.

The system will bring a smarter virtual voice assistant as well as an AI chauffeur function that allows a single user to store up to 10 memorized routes, each up to 100km long.

Mr. He also mentioned at today's event that the first model of the Mona sub-brand will be unveiled in June, and shared a glimpse of the model.

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