Event Recap | Supply Chain: Maintaining Resilience & Accelerating Technological Advancement, by Kevin Liu, CTO of Carlinx

The recent 2025 Guangzhou Automotive Development Summit has successfully concluded. Kevin Liu, CTO of Carlinx, joined industry experts and supply chain leaders for a session titled "Supply Chain: Maintaining Resilience & Accelerating Technological Advancement." Focusing on three key trends – "Era Evolution, Vertical Integration, and AI-driven Transformation" – Kevin Liu shared Carlinx's innovative practices built around "Digital Intelligent Services Covering Full Vehicle Lifecycle."

Kevin Liu noted, "In an era of homogenized user experiences and vehicle performance plateaus, data has become the new growth curve." Anticipating these major shifts, Carlinx has developed a comprehensive solution suite covering integrated V2C data, V2C intelligence, and Intelligent mobility services. Carlinx serves not only the OEM front-markets but also the aftermarket, extracting sustained value from vehicle data throughout its entire lifecycle.

Speech Excerpt:

From Bit to Token: The Three Eras of Data Evolution

Automotive data processing is undergoing a fundamental transformation. "Traditional fuel vehicles transmitted information in bits, the phase of intelligence made it to byte-level, and now the AI era requires token-level processing. We must re-evaluate the value of data from the entire lifecycle of vehicles."

"A vehicle's value stopped at SOP (Start of Production), with focus solely on pre-installation R&D. But the aftermarket is also a   massive, underexplored data goldmine," Kevin Liu emphasized. This approach helps OEMs "build better cars", while enabling clients to "use, manage, and maintain vehicles better," closing the loop on business value.

The Full Lifecycle Perspective: Synergy and Distinction in OEM Partnerships

On supply chain dynamics, Kevin Liu offered a distinct perspective: "Our partnership with OEMs is symbiotic and mutually beneficial, yet also involves a degree of benchmarking — evloving across different stages." Candidly, Kevin Liu acknowledged that "sometimes a SaaS provider's biggest competitor isn't another peer, but the OEM's in-house R&D. Nevertheless, this coopetition has still fostered more productive collaboration.

Through its dual strategy of "Collaborative Innovation + Commercialization", Carlinx helps OEMs achieve tech breakthroughs while swiftly accelerating the commercialization the innovations. This boosts industry-wise efficiency and creates shared value.

Cutting Costs & Boosting Efficiency: Using AI to counter "Involution"

Addressing the widespread "price war" and profit pressure, Kevin Liu called for "tech-driven cost reduction". "Involution is a growing pain inevitable during an industry's rapid transformation. After competing on prices, specs, and 0-100 km/h acceleration times, the focus will inevitably return to business fundamentals - who can deliver value - faster, better, and cheaper."

Carlinx's AI-Driven solutions embody this principle. Previously, an OEM need to invest millions to build a IT system to address a single supply-chain issue, they can now use Carlinx's AI Vertical Agents (the Hyper Agent) and foundational LLMs to build solutions at far lower cost and faster speed. "Replacing outdated tools with the cutting-edge technology is the most efficient way to resist involution and build resilience."

Looking ahead, Kevin Liu highlighted AI's profound impact on supply chains: "China's NEV sector already possesses a globally first-mover advantage in E/E architecture, high-performance chips, and data acquisition capabilities. This is our opportunity."

In the AI-defined era, Carlinx will continue acting as an industry "Connector & Enabler". By utilizing Hyper Flow as a solid data foundation and Hyper Agent to unleash data intelligence, Carlinx aims to empower China's auto industry to convert its first-mover advantage into a lasting global leadership, unlocking data value at every stage of the vehicle lifecycle.