A company known for outdoor gear sees its chip business grow over 200% quarterly. Toread's Q1 2026 financials send a clear signal: the inflection point for edge AI industrialization may arrive sooner than expected.
Background: A Strategic Alliance Targeting the 'Memory Wall'
Toread's subsidiary Shanghai Tongtu Semiconductor signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Horizon Robotics, focusing on large model bandwidth compression technology. Horizon Robotics is a leading domestic provider of automotive-grade AI chips, with 2025 revenue of 3.758 billion yuan, up 57.7% YoY. The partnership targets the biggest obstacle in edge AI deployment: bandwidth and memory bottlenecks.
When large models run on edge devices, the transfer of massive parameters and intermediate data consumes significant bandwidth, preventing full computational power release. Tongtu's full-stack compression addresses this systematically across three layers: input data, intermediate data, and model parameters. Tests show it can compress video input to 1/5, intermediate data by 50% beyond Google's results, and billion-parameter models by 30%, all without retraining.
Industry Impact: From R&D to Scale Application
The Tongtu-Horizon collaboration moves beyond lab validation into joint development. This means large model compression is transitioning from 'concept' to 'product', with potential first applications in autonomous driving and robotics.
Toread's financials confirm market validation. In Q1 2026, chip revenue reached 179 million yuan, up 206.92% YoY, accounting for 36.09% of total revenue, surpassing outdoor business as the primary growth driver. CICC raised its 2026 revenue forecast by 29% to 1.952 billion yuan, while Huaxi Securities maintains a 'buy' rating.
For textiles and apparel, the implication is clear: smart wearables are evolving from 'feature stacking' to 'computing-driven'. Toread's Crest C3 exoskeleton weighs just 1.8 kg with a 10:1 thrust-to-weight ratio, selling over 100 units daily during the 618 shopping festival. Tongtu's compression technology enables more efficient model inference in devices.
Market Outlook: Trillion-Yuan Edge AI and Supply Chain Reshaping
Toread VP Wang Hongjian predicts China's edge AI market will grow from 600 billion yuan in 2026 to 2.1 trillion yuan by 2030. Tongtu's technology can be applied across eight scenarios including personal devices, smart spaces, automotive, industrial IoT, robotics, and AR/VR wearables.
For textile suppliers, this creates new demand for functional fabrics like lightweight, high-tenacity, and conductive materials. Toread has built a full-chain chip product matrix covering 'perception-interaction-display', accelerating self-controlled supply chains from chips to end products.