As the core foundation of 'software-defined vehicles', the automotive cloud industry is moving from providing basic resources to a deeper application stage that drives the intelligentization of the entire industrial chain, and is efficiently empowering in areas such as autonomous driving, intelligent cockpits, digital transformation, and vehicle-road collaboration. Against this backdrop, different types of industrial chain players are taking differentiated paths to cloud adoption: automakers, as the absolute main force, have a demand covering the entire lifecycle from R&D to service, and rely heavily on cloud services; autonomous driving technology companies focus more on utilizing the high-performance computing power of public clouds to accelerate algorithm iteration. Meanwhile, new energy vehicle manufacturers' demand is focused on scenario-based implementations such as 'three electric' system management and charging network operations; travel service companies emphasize leveraging cloud resource allocation to improve operational efficiency such as real-time intelligent scheduling. In addition, overseas automakers facing global deployment are gradually turning to cooperate with well-established Chinese cloud providers due to considerations of data compliance and security.
Based on a systematic research of the Chinese automotive travel cloud market for the entire year 2024, Frost & Sullivan (hereinafter referred to as 'Frost & Sullivan') in collaboration with LeadLeo Research Institute has released 'China Automotive Travel Cloud Market Tracking Report, 2024'. The report aims to conduct an in-depth analysis of the market scale and competitive landscape of China's automotive travel cloud, focusing on key sub-sectors such as travel services, new energy vehicles, local automakers going global, and large model applications. It analyzes market changes and the annual performance of core participants, and makes an assessment of the future development trends of cloud services in the automotive industry.
01
The industrial boundaries of the automotive mobility cloud are continuously expanding, extending from traditional automobile manufacturing to emerging fields such as large models, new energy, and mobility services.
The industrial boundaries of the automotive mobility cloud are continuously expanding, extending from traditional automobile manufacturing to emerging fields such as large models, new energy, and mobility services. Driven by cloud services as the core foundation for industrial digital and intelligent upgrading, new energy technology innovation is accelerating the layout of the industrial chain; at the same time, the application of large model technology in areas such as autonomous driving and in-vehicle systems is becoming increasingly deep, significantly enhancing the industry's intelligence level. In addition, Chinese automakers are accelerating their globalization pace, expanding their international market share by building factories overseas, and entering the mobility service sector one after another to create diversified solutions to cope with market changes.
Source: Frost & Sullivan analysis, LeadLeo research institute
02
In 2024, the market scale of China's automotive travel cloud reached 12.21 billion yuan. Driven by the computing power demand derived from large models and development frameworks, the overall market growth of automotive travel cloud in 2024 was higher than expected.
After experiencing cyclical adjustments from 2021 to 2022, the China automotive travel cloud market entered a new phase of accelerated expansion in 2023. Especially in 2024, the massive computing power derived from the deep penetration of AI large model technologies into the automotive industry and the demand for upper-layer application development have become the core engines driving a significant leap in market size. The market scale increased from 5.26 billion yuan in 2021 to 12.21 billion yuan in 2024, with an annual increment of as high as 3.64 billion yuan between 2023 and 2024, showing particularly strong growth momentum. Looking ahead, against the backdrop of continuous deep integration of cloud computing and intelligent travel, the long-term growth potential contained within this market and the certain trend of industrial digital upgrading are highlighted. It is predicted that the market scale is expected to exceed the 200 billion yuan mark during the forecast period.
Source: Frost & Sullivan analysis, LeadLeo research institute
03
Intelligent scenario-driven elastic computing demands have surged, prompting the automotive industry to accelerate its migration to efficient and flexible public clouds.
In the automotive industry in 2024, public cloud accounted for as high as 65.3%, mainly due to the strong demand for elastic computing power in intelligent scenarios. With the implementation of technologies such as end-to-end autonomous driving and large models in vehicles, automakers need to cope with a surge in computing power ranging from hundreds to thousands of PFLOPS. Public cloud has become the preferred choice due to its flexible resources and pay-as-you-go advantages. For example, urban intelligent driving requires real-time processing of dynamic road conditions, which private cloud struggles to match with sudden and high-frequency computing needs. At the same time, automakers found after building private clouds in 2023 that they have slow scale-out, high operational costs, and resource utilization rates of less than 50%, far lower than the efficiency of public cloud. This prompted about 70% of new workloads in 2024 to return to public cloud.
Source: Frost & Sullivan analysis, LeadLeo research institute
04
The automotive mobility cloud is moving towards a new stage of intelligent and systematic development characterized by computing power-driven operations, model fusion, cloud-native reconstruction, and vehicle-road collaboration.
As the core foundation of 'software-defined vehicles', the automotive cloud industry is transitioning from the exploration phase of providing basic resources to the deep application phase that drives the intelligentization of the entire industrial chain, and is efficiently empowering in areas such as autonomous driving, intelligent cockpits, digital transformation, and vehicle-road collaboration. Against this backdrop, players in different types of the automotive industry chain are exploring differentiated paths to cloud adoption.
Among them, vehicle manufacturers, as the absolute main force in cloudification, have comprehensive and in-depth needs that cover the entire lifecycle from R&D, production to marketing and service. They highly rely on cloud services in core scenarios such as autonomous driving R&D and connected vehicle operations. The needs of autonomous driving technology companies are more focused, with extremely strict requirements for computing power. They tend to use the elasticity and high-performance computing power of public clouds for large-scale model training and simulation testing to accelerate algorithm iteration. At the same time, new energy vehicle companies, due to their unique business processes, have a more focused demand on scenario-based implementations such as 'three electric' system management, battery full lifecycle monitoring, and charging network operations; travel service companies pursue operational efficiency on the business side, leveraging cloud resource allocation to meet the needs of massive data processing and real-time intelligent scheduling. In addition, overseas deployment-oriented vehicle companies are gradually shifting from preferring overseas cloud providers to collaborating more closely with Chinese cloud providers with increasingly improved overseas layouts due to considerations of data compliance and security.
Source: Frost & Sullivan analysis, LeadLeo research institute
05
In the future, the automotive cloud will be data-driven at its core, and will comprehensively evolve towards intelligence, low cost, safety and compliance, as well as global collaboration.
In the future, the automotive cloud will exhibit five major trends. Firstly, the integration of vehicle and cloud will become the core paradigm. The automotive cloud will transform from an auxiliary tool to a data center supporting Level 4 autonomous driving. The unified data exchange and real-time interaction between the vehicle and the cloud will become the industry foundation. Secondly, the popularization of computing power optimization and hybrid architectures will drive the implementation of the 'heterogeneous chip + edge computing' model. The multi-cloud architecture takes into account both elasticity and compliance requirements. Thirdly, the data security and compliance system will be rapidly reconstructed, with technologies such as zero-trust architecture and blockchain-based rights confirmation becoming key tools to cope with regulation. Fourthly, the deep integration of toolchains and standard unification will improve R&D efficiency, helping the industry overcome the dilemma of 'one policy for one region'. Finally, globalization and ecological collaboration will accelerate, with overseas demand driving cross-border cooperation to jointly address computing power and technological challenges.
Source: Frost & Sullivan analysis, LeadLeo research institute
In the wave of accelerating implementation of "software-defined vehicles," enterprises such as Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Baidu Smart Cloud have dominated the development of the automotive mobility cloud market. These leading cloud service providers not only deeply cultivate their own platform and technology fields but also drive with strong full-stack capabilities, providing a solid cloud foundation for automakers in key scenarios such as autonomous driving, intelligent cockpits, going global, and digital transformation. They have injected powerful momentum into the process of intelligence and networking integration across the entire industry.
