3月25日，在亚洲青年领袖论坛高质量发展主题论坛平行对话中，轻舟智航联合创始人兼CEO于骞发表了自己的观点，摘录如下。

Yu Qian says core of high-quality development lies in deeper discovery of underlying demand

On 25 March, Yu Qian, co-founder & CEO of Qcraft, shared his thoughts at the High-quality Development Forum of the Asia Youth Leaders Forum. Following is an excerpt from his speech.

Question: Please tell us about you and your understanding of high-quality development.

We started in the Silicon Valley. Later we came back to China and joined this big industry of intelligent driving. What we are working on is to make vehicles safer and driving more comfortable, so that large-scale automatic driving can come to real life. This is our goal. Speaking of high-quality development, the topic of this session, I think the core lies in a deeper discovery of the underlying demand. I think China is developing very fast in electrification and intelligence. This is not just because how cutting-edge our technologies are or how great our abilities are, but more because in Chinese society, people are willing to accept new things, try new things, and accept changes. This is a very important driving force for high-quality development.

Question: Autonomous driving breaks the traditional barriers between upstream, midstream, and downstream in the automotive industry. GAC has also mentioned that it will increase the proportion of revenue from connected cars and fully autonomous driving. Is Qcraft currently in strategic cooperation with GAC? What do you think?

Yes, indeed. GAC is ahead of the curve in this aspect. Whether in decarbonization, new energy, or intelligence, GAC is a leader in this industry. For a company like us, Qcraft, we can observe the development of the automotive industry in China and the world. Though we are in this industry – we are said to be part of the intelligent transition of the automotive industry – our understanding of the industry often comes from our customers, car manufacturers. In electrification, China is to a large extent a leading player. China has switched from the focus on gearbox, engine, and other core diesel-car technologies to a different track, pursuing innovation in this new track. I think this to a certain degree is a very important factor for our high-quality development. We take the road of differentiation and identify our unique edges to compete. I think this is also very true of us. From a national or whole-society perspective, differentiated competition is a core element of high-quality development.

From the perspective of startups like us, growing from one person to four people to a group of people and now to a leading provider of intelligent driving solutions in China, we feel that this is also the case. In such a competitive environment, we resorted largely to differentiation to find out our edges, for instance, a very efficient method of autonomous driving development. We applied this more skillfully. Through a data-driven methodology, we were able to achieve faster capacity building with less human resources and development costs. This is one thing that we care. Speaking of autonomous driving, this is a dream of ours. It may take ten or twenty years or even longer to realize. In addition to our technological lead, we also pay great attention to successful commercialization, utilizing the combination of technology and commercialization to journey further in this industry. This is a problem that we must face as a startup. Therefore, from this perspective, at this stage, in view of the current background and society, what we do is largely serve our customers and consumers with intelligent driving, so that they can experience a safer and more comfortable driving experience. This is our main business for the moment.

Of course, in this regard, we hope to work together in depth with GAC’s Mr. Liang and many more partners to polish our products, so that our technology can be better differentiated and more useful to consumers in a way that makes them feel that the driving experience is safer and more comfortable. This is the core. We are not innovating for the sake of innovation, but for a purpose. To a large extent, this purpose is to ensure our customer’s success and make consumers more satisfied. This is the ultimate drive.

Questions: In the field of autonomous driving, China has gone from lagging behind to keeping pace to a group of companies leading the race. Now more and more companies are in a “leading” position, do you feel pressured? Is this a concern to you?

From the perspective of either innovation or high-quality development, the core question goes back to the challenges. At this moment, especially after the pandemic, which has profound impact on the whole world, we have become more and more rational. People used to say we were very ahead in a lot of fields, whether autonomous driving or other fields. Way ahead. But with time, people get to see more and will become more rational. This rationality does not mean giving up dreams, but more down to earth – back to why we innovate and what the demands are. I’ve been pondering this question: Why do so many new technologies and new products happen first in the Chinese market, especially in the automotive industry? This is not because our technologies are so good or great. To a large extent, it is because our demands are high. For instance, new sensors like LiDAR and new computing – not only Chinese but also overseas automotive chips – landed first on a car in the Chinese market. New technologies, especially breakthrough ones, are launched first in the automotive industry. More and more novel experiences are also happening first in China’s market. The demands are huge, so this phenomenon comes to be. Chinese carmakers like GAC and many others have strong demand for new growth areas. So do consumers. They are willing to try a new driving experience. This is a strong driving force for our innovation.