Chip giant Intel announced on Monday that it has acquired Mobileye for $15.3 billion, in an effort to remain a dominant player in the self-driving industry.
Mobileye is one of the largest providers of driver assistance and collision prevention systems. It also started work on a camera, radar, and sensor system for self-driving vehicles, in cooperation with global auto-parts supplier Delphi.
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Intel will move its automotive headquarters to Israel, where Mobileye is based.
“This acquisition is a great step forward for our shareholders, the automotive industry and consumers,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO, in a statement. “Intel provides critical foundational technologies for autonomous driving including plotting the car’s path and making real-time driving decisions. Mobileye brings the industry’s best automotive-grade computer vision and strong momentum with automakers and suppliers. Together, we can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost for automakers.”
The two companies have already partnered with BMW to build the iNext, the automaker’s first self-driving vehicle. It is expected to launch in 2021, Intel will fit the processing power and Mobileye will supply all of the sensors and software.
“We expect the growth towards autonomous driving to be transformative. It will provide consumers with safer, more flexible, and less costly transportation options, and provide incremental business model opportunities for our automaker customers,” Ziv Aviram, Mobileye co-founder, president and CEO, added.
It is the largest Israeli tech acquisition ever, almost fifteen times larger than Google’s acquisition of Waze for $1.1 billion. Intel expects a $70 billion opportunity in the vehicle systems, data, and services market.
