Beijing (Gasgoo)- Former director of Huawei’s autonomous driving develpment business was reported to join Geely Holding Group’s ZEEKR brand on Wednesday, and later the automobile brand confirmed the news.

Chen Qi, one founding member of Huawei’s autonomous driving team and former director of autonomous driving R&D department of Huawei’s Intelligent Automotive Solution Business Unit (IAS BU), was named as vice president of ZEEKR. As the head of the brand’s autonomous driving business, Chen Qi will report to An Conghui, CEO of ZEEKR.

According to his LinkedIn information, Chen graduated from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2003 and once worked in ZTE for nearly two years. In 2005, he joined Huawei and started to serve as director of autonomous driving R&D department in 2019. Several months ago, he left the tech giant.

ZEEKR 001; photo credit: ZEEKR

Huawei’s IAS BU is expanding rapidly. Its autonomous driving team has over 1000 members. At the same time, many senior staff have left the company this year, including Jiang Jun, head of mapping and data, Zhang Xiaohong (director of intelligent driving product group) and Peng Xueming (head of sensor fusion) as well as Chen Qi.

ZEEKR, a new electric mobility technology and solutions brand from Geely Holding Group, is also expanding its autonomous driving team, which has more than 100 people currently, to reduce dependence on partners, like Mobileye.