On March 27, 2025, at the 2025 Zhongguancun Forum jointly hosted by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, National Development and Reform Commission, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, China Association for Science and Technology, and the Beijing Municipal Government, Li Auto officially released its self-developed automotive operating system, Li Auto Halo OS. This represents the world’s first open-source automotive operating system, demonstrating Li Auto’s significant technological breakthrough in the intelligent vehicle sector.
During the forum, Li Auto’s Chairman and CEO Li Xiang emphasized that the decision to open-source Li Auto Halo OS reflects the company’s confidence in its technological capabilities and is intended to provide a global innovation platform to foster industry-wide progress. He stated that while traditional closed systems rapidly amplify existing technological advantages, only open platforms can sustain explosive long-term technological innovation.
Development of Li Auto Halo OS commenced in 2021, initially aimed at addressing global semiconductor supply chain issues and compatibility challenges posed by closed-source operating systems. Li Auto invested over one billion yuan, assembled a specialized R&D team of more than 200 experts, and successfully achieved mass production within three years, integrating the OS into its vehicles.
Compared to the widely-used closed-source AUTOSAR operating systems, Li Auto Halo OS offers significant advantages in key performance metrics, safety, flexibility, and cost efficiency. For instance, in active safety functionalities, Li Auto Halo OS reduces the automatic emergency braking (AEB) stopping distance by 7 meters at speeds of 120km/h, significantly enhancing vehicle safety at high speeds. Additionally, intelligent coordination between cameras, central computing controllers, and air suspension systems significantly enhances vehicle body control accuracy, improving passenger comfort.
In terms of information security, Li Auto Halo OS utilizes a multi-layered hardware and software protection architecture, extensively strengthening in-vehicle data security and privacy protection, effectively addressing risks of data breaches and unauthorized vehicle access. Moreover, innovative virtualization technology enables the sharing of computing resources and sensor devices, significantly reducing resource consumption and saving billions annually in costs, ultimately lowering consumer vehicle purchase costs.
Crucially, Li Auto Halo OS achieves true software-hardware decoupling, supports mainstream and emerging domestic chip architectures, and dramatically reduces chip adaptation cycles from the previous 3-6 months to within 4 weeks, greatly enhancing flexibility across the automotive industry value chain.
The open-source initiative is projected to save the global automotive industry between 10 to 20 billion yuan annually in R&D costs, transitioning the sector from opaque “black-box” technologies toward transparent, collaborative openness, and disrupting traditional international supplier monopolies.
Li Auto’s open-source action underscores the automotive industry’s evolving trend in the AGI era—integrating artificial intelligence deeply with automotive operating systems to deliver smarter, safer, and more reliable driving experiences. Moving forward, Li Auto Halo OS aims to become a collaborative global ecosystem for developers, promoting collective innovation and sustainable industry development.
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