MUNICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 20, 2026--
Dr. James Yu, Chairman and CEO of autonomous vehicle technology leader QCraft, engaged in an in-depth discussion with industry experts at the Intelligent Vehicles & Production 2026 conference on March 18, contending that autonomous driving is the most commercially viable pathway to physical AI—the emerging class of intelligence that understands and operates in the real world.
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The two-day conference, held in Garching bei München and jointly organized by the Center Automotive Research (CAR) and Technische Universität München (TUM), drew senior leaders from Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Bosch, Siemens, Rheinmetall, and other major industry players for a series of discussions on the future of intelligent vehicles, autonomous driving, and production innovation.
Dr. Yu's presentation, titled "Beyond Autonomous Driving: Physical AI in the Real World," was followed by a detailed exchange with Professor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, founder of the Center Automotive Research in Bochum, Germany, and host of the forum. The conversation touched on the challenges and opportunities of bringing physical AI from theory to production at global scale.
During the session, which also featured Nico Michels of Siemens, Dr. Christian Steinborn of Rheinmetall, and Prof. Alois Knoll of TUM, Dr. Yu traced the arc of autonomous driving through three distinct stages. The first, he explained, relied on modular machine intelligence, where perception, prediction, and planning operated independently. The second saw the rise of human-like end-to-end learning, with AI trained on massive datasets to mimic human driving behavior. Now, in 2026, Dr. Yu maintained the industry is entering a third and defining phase: superhuman intelligence, driven by VLA large models, world models, and reinforcement learning. This is where AI no longer imitates humans but begins to truly understand the physical world.
"In the digital world, AI has already approached the level of general intelligence, and may even be entering the era of superintelligence. But the next great breakthrough will come from the physical world. When AI begins to understand gravity, friction, and human intention, that is where the biggest impact will be felt,” said Dr. Yu.
As an example of how this vision is becoming a reality, Dr. Yu pointed to a major milestone QCraft reached: more than one million vehicles now operate with the company's Navigate on Autopilot system. He described each of those vehicles as a robot on four wheels, collecting real-world data from complex and unpredictable driving scenarios every day. Taken together, he emphasized, this growing fleet forms an unmatched training ground for physical AI.
A central topic in the discussion was the core challenge facing autonomous driving: testing in the physical world is inherently costly and time-consuming. Because autonomous driving must be thoroughly validated across an enormous range of scenarios to ensure safety, Dr. Yu underscored, achieving that bar is exceptionally difficult. That is why QCraft has built what Dr. Yu likened to a virtual driving school, where world models simulate millions of these safety-critical scenarios and reinforcement learning allows the AI to test, fail, and optimize its decisions, all before the vehicle hits the road.
QCraft chose Munich for its European headquarters, which opened in September 2025. That was no coincidence, Dr. Yu said. Munich sits at the crossroads of two worlds QCraft wants to bridge: the fast-moving AI ecosystem forged on China's dense, unpredictable roads, and Germany's century-long tradition of automotive engineering excellence. The company is now actively building a team there, recruiting top talent to support its global expansion.
Dr. Yu closed with a broader ambition. What QCraft is building, he said, is not simply a smarter car. It is a physical intelligence platform. Today it drives passenger cars. Tomorrow, he suggested, the same underlying intelligence could power robots and any machine that must perceive, reason, and act in the physical world. The autonomous vehicle, in his telling, is just the first chapter.
About QCraft
QCraft is a global leader in L2++ to L4 autonomous driving (AD) solutions for automakers. Founded in Silicon Valley in 2019, the company has deployed its technology in more than 1 million vehicles. Powered by a world-class R&D team and partnerships with leading OEMs and tech companies, QCraft combines proven large-scale adoption with industry-leading safety and efficiency to bring autonomous driving into real life.
Dr. James Yu of QCraft and Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the founder of the Center Automotive Research (CAR)
