Qijing CEO Liu Jiaming: Huawei Participates in Co-creation, but the Decision-making Power Remains with Us
In the autumn of 2026, the Qijing GX7 was officially launched, marking the most significant mass-production achievement from the multi-year collaboration between GAC and Huawei.
Prior to this, the Qijing GT7 broke the ice with a shooting-brake design, tasked with establishing the Qijing brand image. "The shooting-brake represents a youthful attitude, making it easier for consumers to remember," Qijing CEO Liu Jiaming told 21 Auto · Yijian Auto.
With the official delivery of the GX7, which targets the family market, Qijing has moved past the "single-product testing" phase, signaling that the "Jing" (境) model—a co-creation between Huawei and GAC—has officially entered a new cycle of market validation.
For GAC, Qijing is not merely a new car project, but a "do-or-die" battle for the group's intelligent transformation and brand elevation. At the Qijing brand announcement ceremony in September 2025, GAC Chairman Feng Xingya stated that GAC places Qijing at the "highest priority, as it is the first battle to rebuild a new GAC."
Walking into Qijing's office in Nansha, Guangzhou, ten characters are prominently displayed on the wall: "There is no retreat, only the road to victory." This is Qijing's slogan, reflecting the fighting spirit of the new brand. The same words are carved into the welcome stone at the entrance of Huawei's Sanjiapo campus in Songshan Lake, Dongguan. A Qijing employee told 21 Auto · Yijian Auto that the team often uses "wartime language" in communication, such as "deployment," "air force," and "special forces." In their spare time, they encourage each other using Huawei's vocabulary: "Celebrate together in victory, and fight to save each other in defeat."
Among the many OEMs collaborating with Huawei, GAC's story is particularly compelling, as it has fully experienced the process of adjusting cooperation models and re-engaging in deep co-creation. Liu Jiaming is a witness to this process and a promoter of the new collaboration.
Liu Jiaming previously worked deeply at GAC Toyota and later participated in the work of Trumpchi and Qijing, with a resume spanning GAC's joint ventures, independent brands, and high-end brands. As a "core pusher" of the GAC-Huawei collaboration, he served as the Minister of GAC's Investment and Development Department in 2022, participating in intelligent strategy decision-making. In 2024, while at Trumpchi, he promoted the adoption of Qiankun ADS 3.0, experiences that perhaps paved the way for him to helm Qijing later.
On July 9, 2021, GAC Group announced the approval of the AH8 project HI (HUAWEI Inside) model. The project was initially decided to be jointly developed by GAC Aion and Huawei, but was later changed in March 2023 to be developed independently by GAC, with Huawei participating in decision-making more as a supplier of intelligent components.
"There were too many reasons, because the timing, location, and human factors were not all in place," Liu Jiaming told 21 Auto · Yijian Auto. "The outside world only knows that GAC and Huawei adjusted their cooperation method, but in fact, we never stopped pushing for cooperation. The core lies in: who are we cooperating for? How do we cooperate?"
Not long after, AITO achieved phenomenal success. The automotive industry clearly saw Huawei's intelligent capabilities. Car companies that previously had doubts about cooperating with Huawei began to believe because they saw the results.
After careful weighing and repeated deduction, Qijing chose a different path. The advantage of the "Jie" (界) model is that it has already "run smoothly" at the start, with product R&D, definition, styling, and marketing all handed over to Huawei, while car companies focus more on production and execution. However, Qijing values long-termism: if the market changes and someone needs to be responsible for the results, there must be a clear subject.
An industry analyst once expressed this concern to 21 Auto · Yijian Auto: "When business is smooth, 'Jie' is a good cooperation model; but when the market changes and difficulties are encountered, who is responsible?"
"The 'Jing' model came out late, but the depth of cooperation between the car company and Huawei is unprecedented, and the final decision-making power is still left to the brand. At its peak, over a thousand Huawei employees were stationed at Qijing, participating in the entire process of R&D and product polishing, without reservation, permeating every link of the cooperation like rain. Such cooperation can connect GAC's and Huawei's strengths and settle all capabilities in Qijing," Liu Jiaming confessed for the first time to 21 Auto · Yijian Auto about the strategic trade-offs at that time.
To this end, Qijing's equity design adopted a market-oriented mechanism from the beginning: GAC held the majority of shares in the early stage, while gradually introducing more diversified industrial capital such as CATL and Guangshen Fund; Huawei participated deeply by providing intelligent solutions and stationing personnel, but did not hold shares itself.
Liu Jiaming compares this to a "joint venture" model "without capital ties." Huawei's Qiankun deeply empowers and participates in the Qijing project, infiltrating teams and processes into every corner, working in unison with the Qijing team, but the brand's final judgment and responsibility are still left to Qijing itself.
After the model was finalized, greater internal changes quietly took place at the cultural and systematic levels.
In its thirty years of car manufacturing, GAC's methodology has been characterized by quality and systems: when encountering problems, it first looks for the "root cause" rather than solving the symptoms; it requires employees to fulfill their roles in every link to ensure the consistency of vehicle quality control. Its strength is in doing things steadily and thoroughly, but in the rapid iteration rhythm of intelligent electric vehicles, the decision-making chain of serial development and layer-by-layer handover needs to be faster.
Huawei brought a different approach. "Huawei emphasizes initiative and flexible resource allocation in competition—regardless of rank, as long as you have the ability and willingness, resources will tilt toward you, allowing you to lead the battle," Liu Jiaming said.
At Qijing, you can see the fusion and growth of two cultures.
The most unique feature of the Qijing GX7 is the "20-second one-click flat-to-bed" function. The implementation of this feature adopted Huawei's IPD (Integrated Product Development) working method.
Liu Jiaming said that to achieve this function, Qijing drew personnel from perception, electronic control, quality, and other departments. "According to GAC's previous working style, a group of employees would move on to the next product after completing a task; now it's not like that, they may be recalled at any time to continue tackling problems, which breaks through GAC's original development model, and the IPD working philosophy is fully reflected."
In marketing and sales, Huawei's high efficiency and strong execution are also reflected in Qijing. After the new car was launched, Liu Jiaming now holds a steering meeting every afternoon at five o'clock to personally review store-side problems, customer feedback, and excellent cases, running with the dealers. Another Qijing employee told 21 Auto · Yijian Auto that at other OEMs, after a car launch conference, marketing work would come to an end, "at least with some time to breathe"; but now, after the launch conference, the work has just begun. "It might have been calm, but suddenly I received a notice to have a meeting, and after the meeting, we immediately started working."
But Qijing also has its own persistence. When the Qijing brand was first unveiled, Liu Jiaming and Huawei Senior Vice President and Yinwang CEO Jin Yuzhi always emphasized that the two sides often "argued" when they disagreed during cooperation, and good products are "argued out."
Liu Jiaming told 21 Auto · Yijian Auto that the core of the argument is that, after all, cars are durable bulk consumer goods. GAC has accumulated deeper experience in how to ensure their quality and safety, but this naturally conflicts with Huawei's working method of being extremely focused on achieving product functions.
"If you must achieve a function, it will pose many challenges to the stability of quality; if you require quality stability, many functions may not be achievable," he said. "This forces both sides to release their respective capabilities to the extreme."
Since its announcement, Qijing has been striving to introduce the characteristics of its "Jing" model to the public. As the "Jie" model enters a new stage and more models equipped with Qiankun intelligent driving are launched, consumers, in addition to recognizing Huawei's technology, have also begun to more prudently examine the car manufacturer's own manufacturing capabilities and long-term responsibilities. The advantages of the "Jing" model are being seen by the market.
As Liu Jiaming said: "Choosing the 'Jing' model is choosing to settle capabilities in yourself, which is a difficult but correct path."
