Ning Qu is a senior technology leader at the intersection of operating systems, AI infrastructure and software-defined vehicles. As VP of Engineering and Global Head of Software Platform at NIO, he leads the SkyOS team, responsible for designing and delivering NIO’s next-generation full-vehicle operating system. SkyOS spans multiple OS kernels and a broad middleware stack, supporting all major ECU domains from motion and body control to digital cockpit and AD/ADAS, and underpins NIO’s SDV vision across both premium and mainstream brands. Under his leadership, SkyOS has been deployed on multiple models, powering vehicles like the ONVO L60 at scale and forming the software foundation for NIO’s multi-brand, multi-model strategy and future AI-first in-vehicle experience.
Before NIO, Ning held key engineering and leadership roles at Waymo, Baidu, Google and NVIDIA, consistently working on high-performance, safety-critical platforms. At Waymo, he led the ML Runtime team, building runtime frameworks and performance optimizations that helped bring a new autonomous driving stack to production on Jaguar EVs and supported the rider-only launch in San Francisco. At Baidu, he headed the CarOS/Apollo OS team, where he designed and launched Cyber RT, a high-performance runtime framework for autonomous driving, and led functional safety and systems work aligned with ISO 26262 and SOTIF. Earlier in his career he contributed to Linux kernel, cloud security and GPU architecture projects at Google and NVIDIA, with several patents and publications in system security and virtualization. Ning holds a PhD and bachelor’s degree in computer science from Peking University and has been an active community leader, including serving as president and chairman of the Peking University Alumni Association of Northern California.