In the past, large tech companies such as NVidia and the creator of the Corning Gorilla Glass have joined the development of autonomous cars. Intel, one of the largest microprocessor manufacturer in the world have also joined in and announced that they will be spending $250 million dollars for the development of autonomous cars.
According to the Verge, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said that his company would be spending over $250 million dollars over the next two years for the development of the cars. It was mentioned during a keynote in the Los Angeles Auto show today and that their part will be to develop fully autonomous cars. The announcement, however, did not mean that Intel would start building their own line of self-driving cars.
A Fully Autonomous Car
A lot of autonomous cars have advanced systems. Tesla and General Motors have systems that allow their car to be able to self-drive but never become truly and fully autonomous. According to Intel, a truly autonomous car is a vehicle that will not require any human intervention. A scenario given by Intel is for a human to summon their car to their destination and the car takes care of the rest without the human needing to pay attention. This technology would be on an entirely different level of complexity capability that will set Intel on top of the rest.
In addition, Intel mentioned that the research and development of autonomous cars would be geared towards advancing other technology related to connectivity, communication, deep learning and cyber security. Krzanich also mentioned that the car industry would need to prepare for a flux in data with a scenario that cars will be using more than four terabytes of data each day. The data will mainly be used on the autonomous cars sensors, computers, radars, sonars, and lidars.
Intel is currently working with German luxury carmaker BMW and former supplier of Tesla's Autopilot System, MobilEye. The companies collaborated and are targeting 2021 to build a self-driving car by the year 2021. Aside from the two companies, Intel is also involved in a 30-vehicle program that is currently on the road and is setting its goal to 49 vehicles by 2020.
Companies like NVdia, Baidu, Corning and other tech companies are also heavily investing in autonomous car technology. More and more companies are collaborating with car manufacturers to develop the technology each day. This move will not only provide more profit to the companies but also will give the consumers a feeling of a more reliable and safer car to buy.
