He Xiaopeng

He Xiaopeng (何小鹏, pinyin: Hé Xiǎopéng), born November 3, 1977 in Huangshi, Hubei province, is a Chinese internet and automotive entrepreneur. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of XPeng Motors, the Guangzhou-headquartered electric vehicle manufacturer he chairs and the parent company of the Iron humanoid robotics program he personally sponsors. Before XPeng, He co-founded UCWeb in 2004 with Liang Jie and Yu Yongfu, building the dominant Chinese mobile browser of the feature-phone-and-early-smartphone era; Alibaba acquired UCWeb in June 2014 for approximately $4.3 billion, then the largest merger in the Chinese internet sector's history.

At a glance

• Education: Bachelor's degree in computer science, South China University of Technology (1999).
• Current role: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of XPeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV; HKEX: 9868) since August 2017; direct executive sponsor of the XPeng Robotics humanoid program.
• Notable prior affiliations: Co-founder of UCWeb (2004 to 2014); President of UCWeb and President of the Alibaba Mobile Business Group (2014 to 2017); President of Tudou and Ali Games during the Alibaba period.
• Key contributions: Co-founding UCWeb and shipping UC Browser, the dominant Chinese mobile browser of the J2ME and early-Android era; building XPeng Motors into one of the three primary Chinese EV insurgents alongside Nio and Li Auto; sponsoring XPeng's autonomous-driving foundation-model program (XNGP) and the Iron humanoid platform.
• Weibo: @小鹏汽车何小鹏, the verified founder account used for product announcements and company communications.
• LinkedIn: xiaopeng-he-41615484
• X / Twitter: @xiaopenghexpeng

Origins

He Xiaopeng (何小鹏) was born on November 3, 1977 in Huangshi, a prefecture-level city in eastern Hubei province on the south bank of the Yangtze River. He completed his secondary education in Hubei and entered South China University of Technology (华南理工大学) in Guangzhou in 1995, graduating in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in computer science. The university, one of the leading engineering institutions in southern China, has produced a substantial share of the Pearl River Delta technology-entrepreneurship cohort, and He's professional network has remained anchored in Guangzhou through both UCWeb and XPeng.

After graduating in 1999, He spent his early career at Asiainfo, a Beijing-headquartered internet-infrastructure company, working on systems engineering before returning to Guangzhou in 2004 to co-found UCWeb. The transition from infrastructure work to a consumer-mobile-software startup placed him at the front edge of what became the formative Chinese mobile-internet cycle.

Career

UCWeb was founded in Guangzhou in 2004 by He Xiaopeng and Liang Jie, with Yu Yongfu joining shortly afterwards and eventually taking the chief executive role in 2006. The flagship product, UC Browser, was released in April 2004 as a J2ME application optimized for the low-bandwidth, low-memory feature phones that dominated the Chinese mobile market through the second half of the 2000s. UC Browser's compression-and-rendering architecture, which performed substantial preprocessing on UCWeb's servers before delivering pages to handsets, made web browsing materially faster and cheaper on the feature-phone hardware of the period, and the product became the default mobile browser for hundreds of millions of Chinese internet users.

The company raised venture capital from Ceyuan Ventures, Morningside Capital, Alibaba, and others through the late 2000s, and expanded internationally through India and Southeast Asia. By the early 2010s UC Browser had become one of the most widely used mobile browsers globally outside the Chrome and Safari duopoly. In June 2014, Alibaba Group acquired UCWeb in a transaction valued at approximately $4.3 billion, making it the largest merger in the Chinese internet sector at the time. He Xiaopeng's stake in UCWeb at the acquisition reportedly made him a billionaire and gave him the personal capital base for his subsequent venture.

Following the acquisition, He took the role of president of UCWeb under Alibaba, and was later named president of the Alibaba Mobile Business Group, with oversight of Alibaba's mobile browser, search, app store, mobile gaming, and mobile reader businesses. He served additional executive roles at Tudou (Alibaba's video subsidiary) and Ali Games during the same period. His tenure at Alibaba ran from the June 2014 closing through August 22, 2017, when he resigned to focus full-time on XPeng Motors. His departure was characterized in Chinese-language coverage as a move to pursue his own venture rather than as a strategic exit from Alibaba.

XPeng Motors had been founded in 2014 in Guangzhou by Xia Heng and He Tao, two former GAC Group executives, with He Xiaopeng providing early capital and advisory support during his Alibaba tenure. He took the chairman role at XPeng in August 2017 immediately following his departure from Alibaba and assumed full-time operational leadership. Under his leadership, XPeng raised multiple venture rounds from Alibaba, Foxconn, IDG Capital, and others through 2018 and 2019, and brought the G3 SUV to market in 2018 followed by the P7 sport sedan in 2020.

XPeng completed its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on August 27, 2020, raising approximately $1.5 billion at a $11 billion valuation, with the share price rising over 40 percent on the first trading day. The company added a dual-primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on July 7, 2021, making XPeng the only Chinese firm at the time with primary listings on both exchanges. The combined public-market capitalization peaked above $50 billion in late 2020 before retracing through 2022 and 2023 along with the broader Chinese EV cohort, then recovering through 2024 and 2025 on improving sales and the autonomous-driving foundation-model narrative.

He directed XPeng's strategic emphasis on autonomous-driving capability through the XNGP (XPeng Navigation Guided Pilot) program and the underlying foundation-model stack, which by 2024 had become one of the more substantial autonomous-driving R&D organisations in China. The humanoid robotics program, established internally at XPeng around 2020 under He's direct executive sponsorship, was unveiled publicly with the PX5 humanoid at XPeng's October 2023 Tech Day in Beijing, followed by the Iron humanoid platform announced in 2024. The November 2025 AI Day in Guangzhou unveiled the next-generation Iron, which He stated would target large-scale mass production by the end of 2026. Iron's initial deployment is at XPeng's own vehicle production facilities, mirroring Tesla AI's Optimus strategy.

He has held additional roles within the broader XPeng group, including the chairmanship of XPeng AeroHT, the flying-car subsidiary, until September 2022. The Hurun Rich List 2025 reported his net worth at approximately RMB 48 billion (around $6.7 billion), making him the wealthiest founder among the Chinese new-energy-vehicle insurgent cohort as of late 2025.

Affiliations

• South China University of Technology: Bachelor's degree student in computer science, 1995 to 1999.
• Asiainfo: Engineer, approximately 1999 to 2004.
• UCWeb: Co-founder, 2004 to 2014; President under Alibaba, 2014 to 2017.
• Alibaba: President of the Mobile Business Group; President of Tudou and Ali Games, 2014 to August 2017.
• XPeng Motors: Early backer from 2014; Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, August 2017 to present.
• XPeng AeroHT: Chairman of the flying-car subsidiary, until September 2022.

Notable contributions

• UCWeb co-founding (2004). Co-founded the Guangzhou-based mobile browser company that became the dominant Chinese mobile browser of the feature-phone era and one of the most widely used browsers globally outside the Chrome and Safari duopoly through the early 2010s.
• UC Browser product line. Original technical and product direction on the J2ME architecture that made mobile web browsing viable on the low-bandwidth, low-memory hardware that defined the Chinese mobile market through the late 2000s.
• UCWeb sale to Alibaba (June 2014). The approximately $4.3 billion acquisition was the largest merger in the Chinese internet sector at the time.
• XPeng Motors leadership (August 2017 onward). Took the chairman role at the EV company he had backed since founding, directed the company through its 2020 NYSE IPO and 2021 HKEX dual-primary listing, and built it into one of the three primary Chinese EV insurgents alongside Nio and Li Auto.
• XNGP autonomous-driving program. Strategic oversight of the autonomous-driving foundation-model stack and the data-and-infrastructure organisation, which by 2024 and 2025 placed XPeng in the top tier of Chinese autonomous-driving capability.
• XPeng Robotics sponsorship (approximately 2020 onward). Direct executive sponsor of the humanoid program, which unveiled the PX5 humanoid in October 2023 and the Iron platform in 2024, with a stated production target for late 2026.

Open questions

• Iron humanoid mass-production timeline. He stated at the November 2025 AI Day in Guangzhou that XPeng aims for large-scale mass production of the next-generation Iron by the end of 2026. Whether the program meets the stated timeline, slips into 2027 or 2028, or restructures around different deployment targets is the central watchable signal for the humanoid program over the next 12 to 18 months.
• Founder-CEO dual focus across EV and humanoid programs. XPeng's autonomous-driving and humanoid programs share a foundation-model architecture and an engineering organisation, but the EV business remains the dominant revenue-and-attention demand on He's time. Whether the founder-CEO continues to personally sponsor the humanoid program at the same intensity, or whether the program transitions to dedicated operational leadership, is a watchable structural question.
• External-customer humanoid sales. XPeng has signalled that external-customer Iron sales would follow internal factory deployment. Specific external-customer disclosures, partnership announcements, or order pipelines would meaningfully shift the program's competitive position relative to Unitree, UBTECH, Agibot, and the other dedicated Chinese humanoid startups.
• Competitive positioning against the Chinese EV cluster and Tesla AI. He's strategic positioning of XPeng on autonomous-driving capability and now humanoid robotics places the company on a similar trajectory to Tesla. Whether the parallel positioning produces a durable competitive advantage, or whether the dedicated humanoid startups capture the category, is the longer-horizon question shaping XPeng's 2026 to 2028 trajectory.

Sources

• He Xiaopeng Wikipedia entry. Biographical entry covering education, UCWeb co-founding, the Alibaba acquisition, the XPeng founding period, and current roles.
• XPeng Wikipedia entry. Company-level coverage of the founding, NYSE and HKEX listings, and product history.
• UCWeb President He Xiaopeng Resigns to 'Pursue His Dreams'. Yicai Global coverage of the August 2017 Alibaba departure and full-time return to XPeng.
• He Xiaopeng (何小鹏) Wire China profile. Profile of He's role at XPeng and the Chinese EV competitive landscape.
• Xpeng unveils next-gen Iron humanoid robot at 2025 AI Day. CnEVPost coverage of the November 2025 AI Day Iron unveiling and the 2026 mass-production target.
• Xpeng cuts open humanoid robot to prove it's real after viral doubt. Coverage of the viral 2025 AI Day reaction to the Iron humanoid demonstration.
• XPeng Inc. Board Member and Management page for Xiaopeng He. Official corporate biography from XPeng's investor-relations site.
• Companion profiles: XPeng Robotics for the humanoid program, Tesla AI for the closest international analog on the EV-parent humanoid program structural axis, and Xiaomi Robotics for the closest domestic structural analog.