Ford Putting USD 1 Billion Into An Artificial Intelligence Startup

Ford understood how important it was to climb aboard the AI and automation train.

The Ford Motor Company has made one of Detroit’s biggest investments yet in self-driving technology, acquiring a majority stake in artificial intelligence startup Argo AI for USD 1 billion.

Announced on Friday, this is another sign of the growing interest in automation from traditional auto manufacturers.

General Motors had acquired self-driving startup Cruise for USD 1 billion last year, and Uber had bought autonomous trucking company Otto for USD 680 million, also last year.

“Our view is focused on that — in the future, there will be a number of players that will have these systems”, Ford CEO, Mark Fields told Recode in an interview. “There won’t be just one winner. But at the same time we can offer that to other companies where it doesn’t compromise our competitive advantages. We think that’s a great opportunity to get even more scale and create some value for the companies”.

“There’s a lot of advantages to having this company be independent and operate with the agility of a startup”, Bryan Salesky, co-founder and CEO of Argo AI told Recode. “We know that in order for this technology to be fully realised and deployed at scale, we have to work with folks that know how to do that.”

Argo AI was founded by ex-Google and Uber employees and focused on their own version of autonomous driving technology.

Though Google has been working on its self-driving technology (called Waymo)far longer than any other technology company and has arguably achieved the status of the most advanced technology, however many sources say there has been internal tension over the company’s path to market.

Undoubtedly, there is no coincidence that many of those who have left Waymo to start their own companies are laser-focused on commercialising self-driving technology at the soonest possible.

“We want to take a straight-line path to market as much as we possibly can”, Salesky said.

Clearly, partnering with one of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers is that shortest path.

Let’s see who really makes it to the starting grid and can convince the world of it’s products’ ability to drive into the future.

Originally published at Chip-Monks.