Rumors about Intel’s acquisition have been circulating all morning and now, they’ve been confirmed. The company is acquiring computer vision firm Mobileye for no less than $15.3 billion #automagic
Intel is said to offer $63.54 per share in cash to make use of Mobileye’s expertise in computer vision for the automotive industry. The company has been providing camera knowledge to cars since the 2000s – front and rear camera technologies, mapping – and developing driver assistance systems for companies like BMW, Volvo or Cadillac. In fact, last year, Mobileye shook hands with BMW and Intel on a self-driving vehicles project. They set out to put driverless cars in production by 2021, starting with a set of 40 autonomous cars this year.
Now, Intel is making that partnership more enduring with this acquisition. The decision will bring together engineers working on autonomous technology from Mobileye and from Intel under the leadership of Amnon Shashua, Mobileye co-founder. The acquisition is set to finalize until the end of the year.
“By pooling together our infrastructure and resources, we can enhance and accelerate our combined know-how in the areas of mapping, virtual driving, simulators, development tool chains, hardware, data centers and high-performance computing platforms. Together, we will provide an attractive value proposition for the automotive industry.”, said Ziv Aviram, Mobileye Co-Founder, President and CEO.
This isn’t Intel’s first foray in the automotive market. In fact, just last year they bought Itseez Inc., another computer vision company, knowing that only by uniting their forces they could hope to make the autonomous dream a reality. “Many of you have asked why we think autonomous cars and vehicles are so important to Intel’s future. The answer is DATA. Our strategy is to make Intel the driving force of the data revolution across every technology and every industry. We are a DATA company. The businesses we focus on, and deliver solutions to, create, use and analyze massive amounts of data.”, explained Intel CEO Brian Krzanich on a public letters to employees.
Intel’s interest in the market is understandable; their computing power is essential for a driver-less car that hopes to make real-time driving decisions one day. The saying “What’s under the hood” will increasingly refer to computing, not horsepower.
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