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At the China-Germany Industrial Cooperation and Development Forum and the 2026 China-Germany (Europe) Hidden Champions Forum in Beijing, Dr. Tianlei Zhang, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Trunk Tech, delivered a keynote speech titled “A Logistics Revolution Powered by Physical AI.”
His message was clear: logistics is entering the era of intelligent freight networks, and it is one of the largest and highest-value arenas for Physical AI.
Over the past few years, generative AI has reshaped how people create, communicate and interact with information. AI assistants have become part of everyday life. Yet for industries that move the real economy, the next frontier of AI will not stay on screens. It will operate on real roads, inside real vehicles, with real cargo and through real transport missions. This is where Physical AI begins to create industrial value.
For Trunk Tech, autonomous trucks are the core platform for Physical AI in logistics. They bring AI from digital environments into complex, high-frequency and safety-critical freight operations, enabling heavy-duty vehicles to see, think and act in the physical world. The industry need is urgent: driver shortages are becoming more severe as the trucking workforce ages, operating costs remain high with labor and fuel taking up a major share of freight expenses, safety risks are still significant in heavy-duty road transport, and energy use and emissions are under increasing pressure as logistics moves toward low-carbon transformation.
To address these challenges, AI must become part of the operating system of physical logistics. That is the foundation of NATS, Trunk Tech’s Next-Gen AI Transportation System. NATS is built around a simple but powerful vision: building the next-generation AI logistics network with autonomous trucks. It is designed to move logistics from single-vehicle intelligence to network intelligence by connecting vehicles, roads, hubs, terminals and goods into one coordinated system.
The system follows three core principles:
Every Truck Fully Utilized, enabling every truck to operate autonomously, work continuously and coordinate across tasks;
Every Road Better Utilized, connecting roads, hubs and terminals into an intelligent network to unlock operational value;
Every Flow Moving Smoothly, keeping goods moving steadily and efficiently across nodes, scenarios and routes.
Since its founding, Trunk Tech has advanced this vision through a three-stage roadmap. Stage One is for autonomous trucks to connect national logistics hubs. Stage Two is for intelligent fleets to link the nationwide road freight network. Stage Three is for all scenarios to converge into an end-to-end AI logistics network.
Behind this roadmap is Trunk Tech’s full-stack “Vehicle-Edge-Cloud” system, from core technologies to scenario networks. At the technology layer, Trunk Tech has developed key capabilities including the T-Master end-to-end AI model, T-Actor autonomous driving middleware and toolchain, T-Yoga autonomous driving data loop platform and T-Connect intelligent vehicle communication technology. At the system layer, AiTrucker serves as Trunk Tech’s autonomous driving system, while Trunk CAFC enables connected autonomous freight convoys. At the product layer, Trunk Tech’s AiTruck, AiBox and AiCloud product matrix supports intelligent vehicles, smart terminals and cloud-based fleet and transport management. At the scenario layer, Trunk Tech provides three major solutions: Trunk Port for logistics hubs, Trunk Pilot for road freight and Trunk City for urban intelligent transportation.
Trunk CAFC further expands autonomous trucking from single-vehicle intelligence to vehicle-to-vehicle coordination. As a connected autonomous freight convoy technology, CAFC integrates cloud-based task scheduling, convoy management, remote monitoring and energy optimization with roadside perception, edge computing and traffic control, as well as vehicle-side autonomous driving, V2V communication and collaborative decision-making. This allows autonomous trucks to improve driving safety, reduce labor cost, reduce air resistance, improve energy efficiency, improve traffic efficiency and expand transport capacity.
Today, NATS is already being deployed across three major scenarios, moving from point intelligence to end-to-end collaboration.
First, Trunk Port: Driverless Transportation Solutions for Logistics Hubs. Logistics hubs are the key nodes for cargo consolidation, transfer and multimodal transportation. Trunk Port supports seaport logistics, border crossing, in-plant logistics, inland port logistics, airport transshipment and logistics park shuttling. At Tianjin Port, Trunk Tech has deployed a 100+ unit driverless port fleet, powering the development of Tianjin Port’s autonomous driving demonstration zone and supporting the world’s first smart zero-carbon terminal. Beyond Tianjin, Trunk Port has been deployed across multiple scenarios, including Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, Guangzhou Port, Singapore Tuas Port, Yantai Port, Hefei Port, Zhengzhou International Inland Port, Ceke Port in Inner Mongolia, Mandula Port in Inner Mongolia, the Puzhai-Xinqing Corridor, CNOOC Logistics Base and a smart industrial park in South Korea.
Second, Trunk Pilot: Autonomous Trucking Solutions for Road Freight. Road freight is where autonomous trucks move into longer-distance, higher-intensity and more complex transport missions. Trunk Pilot is designed to enhance safety, continuity and operational efficiency across full truckload, bulk cargo transportation, express and freight services, and less-than-truckload transportation. Trunk Tech has participated in national-level pilot programs and road freight demonstrations, including intelligent transportation pilot applications, cost reduction and efficiency improvement cases for transport and logistics, and autonomous truck convoy testing and operations. As autonomous trucks scale in road freight, Trunk CAFC is moving toward commercialization, enabling fleet-level coordination and supporting heavy-duty transport scenarios such as bulk cargo routes.
Third, Trunk City: Urban Intelligent Transportation Solution. As logistics networks extend from ports and road freight into cities, urban freight becomes a critical link in end-to-end logistics. Trunk City coordinates road and vehicle resources to improve urban transport capacity, enables proactive warnings and all-time perception to ensure traffic safety, unifies scheduling of vehicles, tasks and signals to strengthen intelligent control, and reduces energy use and emissions to support green and low-carbon development.
Across these scenarios, Trunk Tech is turning NATS from a vision into real operations. In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Trunk Tech has built a regional model of an integrated AI logistics network. By connecting hubs into corridors, Trunk Tech is pioneering daily intercity door-to-door autonomous truck operations across Tianjin Port, Tianjin Dongjiang Comprehensive Bonded Zone, the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway and urban logistics nodes in Beijing. This marks an important step from single-vehicle intelligence to network intelligence.
For Europe, the vision is equally clear. By connecting ports, roads and cities with autonomous trucks, Trunk Tech aims to work with partners to build a safer, more efficient and greener AI logistics network for Europe.
The logistics revolution powered by Physical AI is already underway. And the next generation of logistics infrastructure will be built across the physical world.
