Intel INTC, in spite of being a late entrant in the autonomous driving industry, is turning heads with its recent developments in the field. The company has initiated testing of around 100 self-driving cars in Jerusalem and the same fleet will be deployed in several other regions including the United States in the coming months.
Intel Well-Poised to Benefit from Self-Driving Growth Potential
Autonomous driving backed by AI is expected to reduce accidents due to human errors. Per a recent report by Grand View Research, the ADAS market is expected to hit $67.43 billion by 2025. The Verge, on the other hand, quoted Intel stating that there is a $7 trillion self-driving future ahead.
We believe that the players in the industry like NVIDIA NVDA, Uber, Alphabet GOOGL, Apple AAPLalong with their automotive partners can make the most of this growth opportunity if the cards are rightly played.
Considering the current scenario, Intel seems to be a very strong player with around 100 self-driving cars on the streets while its competitors are either halting test drive initiatives or opting for virtual testing.
Self-Driving Tests Push Intel Ahead
Intel’s management stated that Jerusalem was chosen as the test city owing to its challenging driving conditions. The cars undergoing scrutiny are aided with 12 cameras to help it have a 360-degree view of the surroundings, which is expected to enhance the “true redundancy of sensing.”
Notably, Intel had announced its plans to test this fleet of 100 vehicles at the time of acquiring Mobileye, a software developer for autonomous driving solutions, which it bought for $15 billion in 2017. The company exhibited its first ever self-driving car at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.
Intel and Mobileye have plans to make Level 4 and 5 vehicles hit the road with assistance from their vehicle partners by 2021. The notable vehicle partners include BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Honda, General Motors, Nissan and Audi among others. Most recently, Mobileye struck a deal with a European car manufacturer for supplying its self-driving technologies to eight million cars.
Waymo Partnership Bodes Well For Intel
Intel has been involved in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving related initiatives since quite some time. The company has a collaboration with Waymo, the self-driving car project of Alphabet, which currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans inked a contract with Intel. Per the deal, Waymo would use Intel’s sensor processing, connectivity and computing based technologies for real-time decision-making.
In a recent article, Silicon Valley Business Journal quoted Intel’s management stating that the company is also “actively trying to grow in the Asian economies to glean insight into that customer base versus the United States and Western world.”
The duo is also coming up with a system-on-a-chip called EyeQ5, which will be in volume production by 2020.
Per Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, autonomous cars will be collecting the highest amount of data about not only vehicles but data on street signs, streetlights and other related items required for the purpose of safe driving. EyeQ5 will be assisting in enhancing deep learning performance efficiency, which, in turn, is expected to boost demand for the company’s ADAS and autonomous driving technologies.
Intel currently has a Zacks Rank #3.