2025 China Intelligent Vehicle New Ecosystem Forum Held in Wuhan IAT Leads New Vision in “Intelligence-driven Development”

Source: Author: Date:2025-09-22 Read:461

On the afternoon of September 17, the 2025 China Intelligent Vehicle New Ecosystem Forum opened in Wuhan under the theme “Intelligence-driven Development”. Held alongside the 25th Wuhan International Auto Show, the event gathered top experts and executives from automakers, tech firms, and research institutes to explore new pathways and collaborative ecosystems for smart vehicles. 

Liu Haitao, Vice President of IAT Automobile Styling Research Institute, was invited to deliver a keynote speech where he introduced IAT’s in-house developed AI design tool—TAI (Taiyi). The demonstration quickly drew strong interest and became one of the forum’s standout moments.

The global intelligent vehicle industry is transforming rapidly. Technology is advancing fast, standards are constantly evolving, and market regulations are shifting—all of which are reshaping the competitive environment. In response, China’s auto sector must speed up its shift from old-style straight-line supply chains to a more modern, networked approach based on partnership and collaboration. 

At the same time, the industry needs to tackle key challenges like scaling AI, improving self-driving technology, and strengthening data security. The goal is to build an industrial ecosystem that is open, connected, safe, and under reliable control.

Image: Liu Haitao, Vice President of IAT Styling Research Institute

In a speech titled “TAI: China’s AI-Powered Foundation for Automotive Design”, Liu Haitao introduced TAI, an intelligent design tool developed by IAT, blending AI with twenty years of hands-on vehicle development experience. He explained: “With competition getting tougher and development cycles shrinking, AI-assisted tools can give a major boost to efficiency. 

At IAT, we’ve seen how styling design that used to take weeks can now be done in days, or even minutes. It allows us to move quickly from initial sketches to full 3D models, color options, and multi-angle views. AI doesn’t just lower the workload. It helps the company move from traditional R&D to intelligent, tech-driven development.”

Amid rapid advances in AI, IAT has been actively integrating AI with automotive design. Developed in collaboration with top partners including NVIDIA and Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI Industry Research, TAI is an AI-powered design solution built on decades of experience specifically for the auto industry. It combines five core functions: creative exploration, sketch drawing, fast coloring, texture rendering, and atmosphere enhancement, which tackles key challenges designers face in creativity expression, efficiency, and control.

Trained in millions of real design cases, TAI has developed a deep understanding of design intent and strong creative exploration abilities. It provides designers with efficient, inspirational, and precise support, unlocks new creative possibilities, enhances drawing skills for designers at any level, and handles time-consuming tasks, so designers can focus on what truly matters: pure creativity.

Liu also added: “Starting from a deep understanding of what users value and how products perform, we've created specialized AI models that handle everything from generating designs and defining products, to managing design knowledge, automating CAD, predicting performance, and running smart simulations. We’ve also developed a comprehensive set of smart tools and algorithms that accelerate innovation across the entire R&D process. TAI is the first fully functional application born from this system and it’s a major step forward for us.”

Forum experts agreed that TAI’s launch signals that China has entered the AI-native era of automotive design. Its innovative approach not only introduces new thinking to design but also injects renewed energy into the entire smart vehicle industry. IAT stated that it will keep improving TAI’s features and expanding its applications, strengthen cooperation with industry partners, and support the high-quality, sustainable growth of China’s intelligent vehicle sector. IAT will continue to make efforts in science for better cars.

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