Shenzhen AI Headhunting Firm Reports: Former Baidu Vision Head Joins Changan Automobile’s Smart Driving Team

According to Shenzhen’s AI headhunting firm, Mr. Han Junyu, who previously served as a senior manager in Baidu’s Vision Technology Department, officially joined Changan Automobile’s Smart Driving team in August 2024. He will report directly to Mr. Tao Ji, the Chief Smart Driving Technology Officer at Changan Automobile.

Mr. Han Junyu has been with Baidu since 2012. As one of the founding members of Baidu’s IDL Deep Learning Lab, he has been dedicated to research and development in the field of visual AI. During his tenure, he successfully developed various visual models, digital human technologies, facial recognition systems, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technologies, and visual intelligence hardware products. Mr. Tao Ji, head of Changan’s Smart Driving R&D team, and Mr. Han had previously collaborated closely during their time at Baidu.

Mr. Tao Ji previously served as General Manager of the Autonomous Driving Division at Baidu’s Intelligent Driving Business Group before moving to Qiangua Technology as CEO, where he focused on L4 autonomous driving technology. Last year, Mr. Tao joined Changan Automobile as Chief Smart Driving Technology Officer and reports directly to Changan’s President, Wang Jun.

In April of this year, Changan Automobile announced the initiation of its Smart Driving AI large model technology development team under Mr. Tao Ji’s leadership. The team is working on next-generation intelligent driving solutions based on “end-to-end” and “multi-modal” large models. Mr. Han Junyu’s addition is expected to bring new contributions to Changan’s R&D in large and multi-modal models.

Publicly available information shows that Changan’s in-house Smart Driving R&D team has approximately 600 members. The Changan Qiyuan E07, scheduled for release in the second half of this year, is expected to be the first model equipped with Changan’s self-developed L2+ level intelligent driving solution. This model uses the NVIDIA Orin X platform and is equipped with LiDAR, enabling high-speed navigation assistance (NOA) with future upgrades for city navigation assistance.

Currently, traditional automakers generally adopt a strategy of supplier integration with supplementary in-house development, while Changan is one of the few companies actively investing resources into advanced intelligent driving technology development. Last year, Changan’s Chairman, Mr. Zhu Huazhong, announced plans to invest 200 billion RMB by 2030 and add over 10,000 new members to its technology innovation teams. President Wang Jun stated in a July press conference that all Changan Qiyuan series products will feature nearly L3 level autonomous driving capabilities by the fourth quarter. Additionally, Changan has a deep partnership with Huawei, with both the Avita brand and Changan’s own brand, Deep Blue, adopting Huawei’s ADS intelligent driving solutions.

In late August 2024, Avita announced a 11.5 billion RMB investment, becoming the second-largest shareholder in Huawei’s intelligent automotive solutions company, Yixuan Technology, with a 10% stake. Changan Automobile stated that its self-developed intelligent driving technology and Huawei’s solutions will be applied to different vehicle models. Both Mr. Tao Ji and Mr. Han Junyu come from Baidu.

This year, several senior talents from Baidu’s intelligent driving sector have moved to other companies. Mr. Luo Qi, former technical head of Baidu’s L2+ autonomous driving business, has joined NVIDIA’s automotive division as Engineering Director, responsible for prediction, planning, and control. Mr. Zhou Peng, former head of Baidu’s cabin fusion intelligent driving technology, has joined BYD to develop end-to-end large model regulation algorithms. Mr. Su Tan, former General Manager of Baidu’s IDG (Intelligent Driving Group) automotive business, has joined Microsoft Cloud and reports to Microsoft China President, Yuan Xin. Microsoft Cloud has specially established an automotive team to provide cloud services and high-performance computing platforms to automotive manufacturers and intelligent driving technology companies.

Shenzhen headhunting firm has partially compiled a list of talents previously supplied by Baidu to the autonomous driving industry:

• Peng Jun, Co-founder of Pony.ai (Former Baidu Vision Research Architect)
• Lou Tiancheng, Co-founder of Pony.ai (T10 Engineer)
• Xiao Bo, Co-founder team member of Pony.ai (Former Baidu Vision Research Autonomous Driving Researcher)
• Liu Bocong, Early employee of Pony.ai (Former Baidu Vision Researcher)
• Zhou Guang, Founder of Yuanrong Qixing (Former Baidu Vision Research Software Architect, Former Chief Scientist at Roadstar.AI)
• Tong Xianqiao, Former CEO of Roadstar.AI (Former Baidu Vision Research T7 Engineer)
• Chief Scientist of Shanghai Youdao Zhitu (Former Baidu Vision Research T7 Engineer, Former CTO at Roadstar.AI)
• Bao Junwei, Founder of Tudatong (Former Baidu Vision Research Computation Infrastructure Head)
• Wu Xiaqing, Founder of DeepMap.ai (Former Baidu Vision Research Principal Architect)
• Liu Shaoshan, Founder of Pusyingcha (Former Baidu Vision Research Senior Architect)
• Yu Kai, Founder of Horizon Robotics (Former Baidu Deep Learning Institute Founder and Executive Vice President)
• Yu Yinan, Co-founder of Horizon Robotics (Former Baidu Deep Learning Institute Senior Researcher)
• Liao Jie, Director of Smart Driving R&D at Horizon Robotics (Former Baidu Deep Learning Institute Algorithm Engineer)
• Zhang Tianlei, Founder of Zhuxian Technology (Former Baidu Deep Learning Institute Engineer)
• Li Bo, Co-founder of Zhuxian Technology (Former Baidu Deep Learning Institute Engineer)
• Ni Kai, Founder of Heduo Technology (Former Baidu Deep Learning Institute Senior Scientist)
• Yang Wenli, Founder of Lingjun Technology (Former Baidu Deep Learning Institute Chief Architect)
• Wang Jin, Founder of Jingchi Technology (Former Baidu Autonomous Driving Business Unit General Manager)
• Chen Shixi, Jingchi Technology (Former Baidu Autonomous Driving Business Unit T9 Engineer)
• Han Xu, Founder of WeRide (Former Baidu Autonomous Driving Business Unit Chief Scientist)
• Wu Xuebin, Baoneng Automobile (Former Baidu Autonomous Driving Business Unit Head, Baidu Vice President)
• Tao Ji, Chief Driving Technology Officer at Changan Automobile (Former Baidu Autonomous Driving Business Unit General Manager, Former Co-founder of Qiangua Technology)
• Sun Haowen, R&D Director of Pony.ai Truck Business (Former Baidu Autonomous Driving Business Unit T7 Engineer)
• Gu Weihao, CEO of Haomo Technology (Former Baidu L3 Business Unit General Manager)
• Former Zhuxian Technology Co-founder (Former Baidu Intelligent Vehicle Business Unit Autonomous Driving Scientist)

Please follow and like us: