Spending 3 to 4 billion to develop chips! NIO's chip company secures over 2.2 billion in funding, with a valuation close to 10 billion

NIO’s chip company has completed its first round of financing.

On February 26, NIO announced that its chip subsidiary, Anhui Shenji Technology Co., Ltd. (“Shenji Company”), has signed the first round of equity financing agreements, raising over 2.2 billion yuan, with a post-investment valuation close to 10 billion yuan.

Investors in this round include local state-owned capital such as Hefei Guotou and Hefei Haiheng, as well as semiconductor industry capital and leading market-oriented institutions like IDG Capital, SMIC Juyuan, and Yuanhe Puhua. NIO stated that the funds raised will mainly be used for the research and development and promotion of high-end automotive-grade chips, supporting NIO’s long-term layout in autonomous driving and embodied intelligence.

As the core platform for NIO’s self-developed chip system, Shenji Company was established in June 2025, focusing on the research, development, and application promotion of high-performance automotive-grade chips. Its core product, the Shenji NX9031 chip, is a result of significant investment in R&D by NIO. According to Li Bin, the R&D cost of the Shenji NX9031 is roughly equivalent to building 1,500 battery swap stations. Based on the cost of 2 to 3 million yuan per swap station, the R&D cost of the chip is estimated to be between 3 billion and 4.5 billion yuan.

Li Bin also revealed that Shenji “can bring approximately 10,000 yuan cost advantage per vehicle.” Based on last year’s sales of 179,000 units of NIO’s main brand, and excluding subsequent R&D expenses and external supply, the initial investment would take two to three years to recover.

Currently, the chip has been installed in all NIO models, with cumulative shipments exceeding 150,000 units since production began in 2024.

Previously, Shenji was 100% owned by NIO; after the financing, the company’s ownership structure will change accordingly.

According to NIO’s announcement, after the transaction, NIO will continue to hold 62.7% of Shenji’s controlling stake, investors will collectively hold 27.3%, and the remaining 10% will be held by entities involved in the management share incentive plan.

As early as 2021, NIO began its self-developed chip journey, with the core goal of breaking the monopoly of foreign chip companies in automotive core chips, addressing issues such as supply chain instability, high procurement costs, technological iteration mismatches, and customer demands.

After completing the first round of financing, NIO’s layout in intelligent chips will accelerate further. According to plans, Shenji will launch a next-generation high-performance chip for intelligent driving based on existing products, while expanding into multiple other chip fields.

From a business perspective, Shenji’s initial orders mainly come from NIO’s vehicle system. As the chips mature, the company is actively exploring emerging fields such as embodied robotics and agent reasoning, aiming to provide complete chip and smart hardware solutions for the era of general artificial intelligence, reducing reliance on single automotive scenarios.

Lin Shi, Secretary-General of the Intelligent Connected Vehicles Branch of the China-Europe Economic and Technical Cooperation Association, pointed out that splitting off chip businesses and introducing external capital is an inevitable trend in industry development. It benefits the independent development and commercialization of chip businesses and provides stronger technological support for the intelligent transformation of vehicle manufacturers.

It is worth noting that competition among leading domestic automakers for self-developed chips has become increasingly fierce.

BYD’s (002594) self-developed intelligent driving chip “Xuanji” is scheduled to be installed in vehicles in the second half of 2026. XPeng’s “Turing” AI chip has achieved mass production, and Li Auto’s “Maha 100” chip has successfully been taped out, with plans for mass production and vehicle installation in 2026. Against this backdrop, NIO’s chip strategy faces internal challenges such as technological iteration and cost control, as well as external industry competition pressures.