Great Wall Motors is to partner with Chinese AI chipmaker Horizon Robotics, in a move that is expected to improve the carmaker's competitiveness in autonomous driving and smart onboard functions.

The carmaker will soon become a strategic investor in the startup, which vows to take on Nvidia and Mobileye, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told China Daily on Monday. The amount of investment is not revealed.

Neither Great Wall Motors nor Horizon were available for comment. In a previous interview, Fu Xiaokang, vice-president of the carmaker, said Great Wall Motors is interested in the sector, which is key for smart vehicles.

Statistics show that over 45 percent of Great Wall Motors' models have Level 2 autonomous driving functions. It is working on Level 3 functions as well.

Established in 2015, Horizon is the first Chinese maker of AI chips for vehicles' autonomous driving and smart onboard functions.

In an interview in December, Horizon founder and CEO Yu Kai said the company will launch its latest-generation chip, the Journey 5, in 2021. The new chip will feature a computing capacity 30 percent higher than Tesla's full self-driving computer, he said.

The company aspires to become the largest AI chipmaker for China's car market in three years, and expects its automotive-grade processors to come pre-installed in at least 5 million vehicles in 2023.

The first production model with pre-installed Horizon chips was the UNI-T SUV from Chinese carmaker Changan, which hit the market in June 2020. Horizon said it has received orders for more than 20 models from different companies.