Intel enters the self-driving car market
It used to be the case that car companies were car companies and tech companies were tech companies, but now the lines between the industries are blurring and the old rules have changed
Key takeaways
- The fleet will instead be designed to showcase the talents of Intel's $15 billion acquisition of Mobileye, a leader in the self-driving car space, that closed couple of months ago.
- Intel bought 84 percent of Mobileye's shares and expects to see cars with the Intel-Mobileye technology on the road in 2018.
- The announcement comes as competitors like Qualcomm, who produce most of the chips used in today’s mobile phones, and Nvidia, who’s GPU’s are now powering the AI revolution, ride to popularity.
Cite or link to this article
Griffin, M. (2017) 'Intel enters the self-driving car market', 311 Institute, 5 November. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/intel-enters-the-self-driving-car-market/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
Intel has announced that it will join almost every other auto manufacturer on the planet and start building a fleet of 100 self-driving cars to test self-driving technology, as the chip company tries to leapfrog rivals like Qualcomm and Nvidia who are already building up a commanding lead in the space.
The cars will be highly automated "Level 4" vehicles, which is only one stop below fully autonomous, but that said it’s still well above the level of autopilot and other commonly used features that are already on the road.
Intel said the project, which includes tests in the US, Israel and Europe, won't replace Intel's new autonomous driving lab, the latest version of which helps build self-driving car systems for other companies, including BMW, Delphi and Ericsson, and that was announced in May.
The fleet will instead be designed to showcase the talents of Intel's $15 billion acquisition of Mobileye, a leader in the self-driving car space, that closed couple of months ago. Israel based Mobileye makes the technology that helps the majority of today’s self-driving cars “see,” and so far it’s given Intel a big boost into a market that it had a limited play in. Intel bought 84 percent of Mobileye's shares and expects to see cars with the Intel-Mobileye technology on the road in 2018.
The announcement comes as competitors like Qualcomm, who produce most of the chips used in today’s mobile phones, and Nvidia, who’s GPU’s are now powering the AI revolution, ride to popularity.
Meanwhile Qualcomm announced last fall it would buy NXP Semiconductors in a $47 billion deal, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave an ambitious self-driving car demonstration earlier this year at technology tradeshow CES.
Chips are already a crucial component in many vehicles, powering the growing suite of electronic devices, and over time they’ll become more intelligent, allowing companies to do more of the hard AI processing work at the edge of the network rather than having to transmit it back to a central system, but when self-driving car sensors must collect, analyse and transmit data about the outside world constantly, a powerful chip becomes much more critical and that’s the market that intel is hoping to crack. Let’s just hope it’s more successful than its foray into wearables that it ended up unceremoniously canning last year.
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Why does this matter?
It used to be the case that car companies were car companies and tech companies were tech companies, but now the lines between the industries are blurring and the old rules have changed
About the author
Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
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Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 5 November 2017. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2017). Intel enters the self-driving car market. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/intel-enters-the-self-driving-car-market/
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