Sources familiar with the matter revealed that Lu Siyuan, head of AI Infra at XPeng Motors, will be leaving the company and may join OpenAI’s Infra team to participate in embodied intelligence research. At XPeng Motors, Lu Siyuan oversaw the group’s unified AI infrastructure, directly managing a technical team of approximately 200 people, directly supporting the shared underlying computing power and software stack for the three embodied intelligence businesses: autonomous driving, IRON humanoid robots, and flying cars.
XPeng was one of the first automakers in China to unify humanoid robots, L4 autonomous driving Robotaxi, and flying cars under its embodied intelligence (physical AI) strategy. He Xiaopeng believes that automobiles, humanoid robots, and flying cars will share a unified AI technology foundation, with 60%-70% of perception, large-scale models, computing power, and motion control technologies reusable across domains.
Meanwhile, XPeng Motors has changed its name to XPeng Group, with a long-term strategic goal of transforming from an intelligent electric vehicle company into a global embodied intelligence company focused on the physical world.
In 2023, Pengxing Intelligent was incorporated into XPeng Motors, with He Xiaopeng directly leading the robotics business. 2026 was defined by XPeng as the first year of mass production for robots, clearly defining a roadmap for full-chain mass production and scenario-based deployment, officially completing the leap from R&D to commercialization.
The head of XPeng Group’s robotics business is Zhao Tongyang, the founder of Duogou Robotics, and an expert in robot hardware and legged motion control. On June 10, 2026, He Xiaopeng released an internal letter announcing that he would personally assume the roles of head of the Robotics Center and head of the Product Department, elevating the robotics business to the highest strategic priority of the group. Gu Jie is the head of the Embodied Systems Engineering Department, and Liu Xianming is the head of the General Foundation Department.
Shi Xiaoxin, the number one embodied product manager at XPeng Group, left the company in June 2026.
Lu Siyuan holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Southern California (USC), possessing a strong foundation in high-performance computing and deep learning theory, specializing in large-scale data-intensive computing and model optimization.
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