A former employee of XPeng Inc. (NYSE: XPEV) is being sued for nearly 10 million yuan for allegedly violating a non-compete agreement.

According to reports, XPeng Group has recently initiated investigations into former employees who left departments such as the General Intelligence Center and Robotics Center.

One former staff member is suspected of breaching their non-compete obligations, leading the company to file a labor arbitration claim seeking compensation of close to 10 million yuan.

This move is seen as part of XPeng's efforts to protect its core technologies in key competitive areas like advanced driver-assistance systems, Turing AI chips, and robotics, amid an increasingly fierce market environment.

It is reported that XPeng Group plans to hire 8,000 new employees in 2025, with research and development expenditures reaching 9.49 billion yuan.

Of this R&D budget, approximately 4.5 billion yuan is allocated to AI-related initiatives.

For 2026, the company expects its total R&D investment to be around 12 billion yuan, excluding its subsidiary Huitian, with about 7 billion yuan earmarked for physical AI-related research and development.