Intel will be the primary supplier of computing power inside Delphi’s self-driving system of the future. The two companies signed the deal on Monday, giving Intel another major partner in the auto industry.
Delphi is making big moves in the self-driving industry, clearly trying to avoid becoming irrelevant in a future without humans driving. It partnered with Israeli firm Mobileye earlier in the year, with an ambitious goal of having all the pieces of a fully autonomous car designed by 2019.
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Self-driving cars will require a lot of processing power to make the correct decision every time on the road, especially in the early stages where a car may be making a decision for the first time and doesn’t have any precedent.
The firm did not state what processors Intel would supply to Delphi to power the self-driving car of the future. We assume the chipmaker is working on new processors that are able to process more decisions and take in more factors, like objects nearby, than a regular processing unit.
Not Intel’s first move into autos
It is not Intel’s first foray into the automotive market. Earlier this year, BMW announced Mobileye and Intel as primary partners in its own self-driving plan, which starts with the iNext in 2021.
Supplying the automotive industry with high-power processing units could be a way for Intel to shave off its poor performance in other emerging markets, like wearables.
The chipmaker is not the only semiconductor manufacturer eyeing up the self-driving market, Nvidia has partnered with Baidu and recently launched a much more powerful processing unit for cars.
