Since 2026, the global autonomous driving industry has accelerated its implementation, driven by policy support, technological breakthroughs, and real-world applications. Amid this trend, the Intelligent Driving ETF Huatai-PineBridge (516520) has continued to attract capital inflows, with cumulative net inflows reaching 580 million yuan since 2026—1.7 times the total net inflows for 2025. This has boosted its latest size to 1.141 billion yuan, making it the only ETF in its category with assets exceeding 600 million yuan and highlighting its notable liquidity advantage.
As the industry evolves, the core of competition in autonomous driving has shifted from single-technology contests to integrated capabilities that deeply merge AI with the real physical world. Consequently, "Physical AI" has become the central competitive direction in the next phase of autonomous driving. At this year's January Consumer Electronics Show, NVIDIA's CEO mentioned this concept 17 times in his keynote speech, defining it as intelligent models capable of perceiving motion, understanding, and interacting with the real world, with autonomous vehicles serving as typical embodiments.
Guided by the "Physical AI" concept, the industry's technological implementation is accelerating. Currently, several major automakers are speeding up technological iterations. One automaker's second-generation VLA architecture can simultaneously drive intelligent vehicles, Robotaxis, humanoid robots, and flying cars, among other embodied intelligent carriers. Another leading company's newly released MindVLA‑o1 system has achieved cross-carrier compatibility between autonomous driving and robotic technologies, injecting strong momentum into the sector's continued development.
Simultaneously, commercial applications are steadily advancing. On April 20, the world's first "autonomous mobile space" route—the Guiyang "Adventure Loop"—will begin trial operations, marking the transition of this new category from technical R&D to city-level commercial validation. This provides an important reference model for the large-scale implementation of the entire autonomous driving industry.
It is reported that the Intelligent Driving ETF Huatai-PineBridge (516520) closely tracks the CSI Intelligent Vehicles Theme Index, which includes companies providing terminal perception and platform applications for smart cars, as well as other representative firms benefiting from the sector. The index reflects the overall performance of intelligent vehicle industry companies, with its top five sectors being auto parts (23%), semiconductors (19%), passenger vehicles (16%), software development (11%), and consumer electronics (7%). Covering multiple segments of the intelligent vehicle industry chain, the ETF may serve as a key tool for investors seeking exposure to the new wave of automotive intelligence.
The fund manager of the Intelligent Driving ETF Huatai-PineBridge (516520), Huatai-PineBridge Fund, is one of China's first ETF managers. For years, it has been committed to providing investors with transparent, easily tradable, and low-cost index tool products. According to the latest annual fund report data, Huatai-PineBridge Fund generated a total profit of 111.14 billion yuan for investors in 2025, making it one of only seven fund companies in the market with profits exceeding 100 billion yuan during the same period. Its popular product, the CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge (510300), achieved a fund profit of 78.516 billion yuan in 2025, becoming the only fund product in the market with profits exceeding 60 billion yuan for the period.