As vehicle intelligence scales, traditional ECU-centric architectures are being stretched to their limits. Growing sensor counts, higher data rates, and increasingly complex perception stacks are driving a fundamental shift toward more centralized and zonal architectures—where sensing, compute, and control are consolidated to reduce latency, cost, and system complexity. This panel explores how and why OEMs and suppliers are collapsing distributed ECUs into unified sensing and compute platforms. What architectural trade-offs emerge around redundancy, safety certification, bandwidth, and fault isolation? How do these shifts impact sensor fusion strategies, software reuse, and over-the-air update models? The discussion will examine real-world deployment lessons, including where centralization delivers clear benefits, and where hybrid or transitional architectures still make sense. From ADAS to higher-level autonomy, this session will unpack what scalable vehicle architectures really look like, and how today’s design decisions will shape performance, safety, and upgradability across vehicle lifecycles.