Xi Wang Co-CEO Wang Zhan: Building a "Core" Foundation Through Independent R&D, Driving High-Quality Digital Economy Development with Domestic Computing Power | Xinxing PORTFOLIO

Recently, Heart Capital portfolio company Xi Wang made an appearance at the 2025 Boao Forum for Entrepreneurs!

From December 2 to 5, Xi Wang Co-CEO Zhan Wang was invited to attend the forum, where he delivered a keynote speech on "Building a Foundation of 'Chips' Through Independent R&D" at the "High-Level Sci-Tech Self-Reliance and Industrial Innovation Development Forum" hosted by Banyuetan magazine. He offered an in-depth analysis of how domestic computing power is driving the digital economy.

Packed with insights — here are the highlights from Heart Capital's on-the-ground coverage 👇

Riding the "Chip" Momentum, Responding to the Era's Imperatives

Today, the global technological revolution and industrial transformation are accelerating once again. Artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, and intelligent computing power are becoming critical engines for strengthening national competitiveness. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee explicitly called for accelerating high-level sci-tech self-reliance to lead the development of new quality productive forces. The 15th Five-Year Plan further proposes strengthening original innovation and breakthroughs in core technologies, driving decisive progress across the entire chain in key areas such as integrated circuits; promoting deep integration of the real economy and digital economy, fully implementing the "AI+" initiative, and pushing for paradigm shifts in scientific research.

These directions provide a clear coordinate for the chip industry's development. On one hand, we must become a pivotal force within the national sci-tech system, responding to strategic needs through independent R&D, sustained investment, and technological breakthroughs. On the other hand, we must serve as an industrial backbone for the digital economy, using stable and reliable domestic computing infrastructure to power society's intelligent transformation.

As a full-stack, self-developed AI chip company, Xi Wang consistently starts from demand, refines itself through real-world scenarios, uses practical problems to drive R&D breakthroughs, and answers national needs and industry expectations through autonomy and control. This sense of mission is the fundamental force propelling us forward.

Breaking Through with "Chips," Fortifying the Computing Foundation

High-quality development of the digital economy depends on equally high-quality computing infrastructure. Our understanding of "high quality" is straightforward and concrete — available, usable, and easy to use. Centered on this goal, Xi Wang insists on full-stack self-development to build an autonomous and controllable domestic computing system, continuously iterating products and advancing in core technologies and industrial ecosystems.

Full-Stack Self-Development, Building an Autonomous and Controllable Technical System

In critical modules including instruction set definition, GPGPU IP architecture design, and compiler toolchains, Xi Wang maintains 100% independent intellectual property rights. The reason is simple:

AI chips are products of hardware-software integration. Only through full-stack self-development can we form a complete understanding and mastery of the technology as a whole. Relying on external technologies may enable basic operation, but without optimization capability, subsequent updates and iterations based on evolving needs become difficult.

More importantly, computing power is the foundation of AI development, and computing autonomy is the right to breathe in the AGI era. Full-stack self-development is the core pathway to achieving autonomy and control, reducing or even eliminating risks of dependence on external technologies.

In short, full-stack self-development allows us to truly understand the mechanisms and boundaries of each technology layer, and transforms "domestic control" from a slogan into verifiable engineering capability.

Validating Autonomous Strength Through Product Iteration, Steadily Advancing from S1 to S3

Chip-making originates from scenarios. The S1 chip is a DSA-architecture cloud-edge inference chip, purpose-built for high energy-efficiency inference applications at the cloud and edge. This chip not only completed our R&D team's technical磨合 and capability building, but also validated Xi Wang's autonomous chip-design strength through solid performance.

Subsequently, we benchmarked against international flagship GPU chips to launch the full-function general-purpose chip S2. This chip achieved first-tapeout success in 2024 and entered smooth mass production, supporting mainstream ecosystem compatibility. Benchmark tests showed it ranks in the domestic first tier for large-model inference and multimodal tasks — confirming Xi Wang's advanced capability to "make high-end chips well."

Xi Wang's next-generation S3 chip will focus on large-model inference demands, with emphasis on FP8 and FP4 low-precision computing, deeply integrating our full-stack technical accumulation to create "capable and affordable" high cost-performance products, further completing our autonomous and controllable technical and product system to better match actual industry needs.

Industry peers have asked: when Xi Wang claims to be "the domestic GPU company that understands AI better," where exactly does this "understanding" lie?

In our view, this "understanding" is not a slogan but a dual foundation of technology and demand in our corporate DNA: first, deep expertise in hardware architecture; second, intimate knowledge of AI scenarios and market needs. The combination of both enables Xi Wang to invest in R&D through the most economical and efficient path, directing limited resources toward directions that create the greatest industrial value, and building the domestic computing power that people truly need — accessible, easy to use, and affordable.

Gathering Strength Through "Chips," Embarking Together on the Journey to Self-Reliance

The competitiveness of China's digital economy requires a mature and complete autonomous computing system as support; the momentum for high-quality industrial development also depends on enterprises resonating with national strategic directions. In this process, we share three convictions:

First, persist in independent R&D without wavering.

Chips are a classic "time for space" industry — the path is arduous and the process lengthy, yet it is the most worthwhile commitment. Xi Wang will continue investing and accumulating, achieving important breakthroughs at every critical juncture.

Second, commit to making domestic computing power that is "usable, cost-effective, and sustainable."

Intelligent computing power is both a technical metric and a new quality productive force. We believe that domestically produced GPUs deployed at scale, with controllable costs and stable reliability, can propel the digital economy continuously forward.

Third, insist on growing together with the industrial ecosystem.

The development of domestic computing power is not the achievement of a single enterprise, but the result of collaborative industry chain construction. Xi Wang is eager to actively integrate into the national open innovation system, working with upstream and downstream partners to build a secure, controllable, green, and efficient computing ecosystem — accelerating innovation through collaboration and enhancing the global competitiveness of "China Computing" through strength.

Looking ahead, Xi Wang will take self-development as its root, scenarios as its anchor, and ecosystem as its bridge, continuously investing and breaking through on the path of domestic computing power. We are ready to work with all sectors of industry, with a more open posture and more pragmatic actions, to jointly drive China's digital economy toward higher quality. With Chinese chips, building Chinese intelligence — letting domestic computing power empower millions of households.

To better establish benchmarks for sci-tech self-reliance and guide industry innovation direction, this forum joined hands with Xi Wang Sunrise and multiple participating organizations to jointly launch the "Initiative for Integrating Sci-Tech Self-Reliance with Industrial Innovation," documenting and witnessing the scientific innovation strength and sense of responsibility of Chinese enterprises, letting the light of practice illuminate the path of high-quality development.

This forum gathered guests from government, enterprise, academia, and research, focusing on the key role of technological innovation in driving the formation of new quality productive forces and high-quality development, jointly exploring pathways for deep integration of technological and industrial innovation, and mapping out the "Boao Solution" for promoting sci-tech development in the new era.

(Zhan Wang, Co-CEO of Xi Wang, third from right)

Founded in 2022, Heart Capital is a China-based early-stage venture capital fund focused on technology and digitalization. The Heart Capital team is primarily composed of Yan Han, founding partner of Lightspeed; core investors; a chief financial officer; and senior investors from industry. The team's past investments include Series A investments in Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV, 09868.HK), Full Truck Alliance (NYSE: YMM), as well as FinVolution (NYSE: FINV), RoboSense (02498.HK), Baichuan, Manbang Cold Chain, Fan Deng Reading, World Logistics, Micro-nano Starry Sky, LandSpace, Lanhu, Starfield, and others. Rooted in China with a global outlook, Heart Capital is committed to finding true value in non-consensus. Heart Capital respects the value of "people" and advocates the potential of "heart," looking forward to accompanying more young Chinese entrepreneurs to strengthen China and go global.