Ford Invests $1-Billion in Artificial Intelligence

Ford is investing $1-billion into a new artificial intelligence company.

The investment will go towards developing a virtual driver system for Ford’s upcoming self-driving cars, with the potential to license the technology to other companies. The $1-billion investment is in Argo AI, founded by former Google and Uber leaders and features a team of experts in robotics and artificial intelligence led by company founders Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander. Salesky serves as CEO of Argo AI and was previously a leader on the self-driving car team of Google, while Rander is company COO and formerly had a similar role as Salesky at Uber.

The current team working on Ford’s virtual driver system will be combined with the robotics talent and expertise of Argo AI. The virtual driver system is a machine-learning software that acts as the brain of autonomous vehicles. Both companies hope to bring SAE level 4 self-driving vehicles to Ford’s lineup.

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The automaker hopes to have fully autonomous vehicles to market in 2021 and by becoming majority stakeholder in Argo AI, it moves one step closer to that goal. The investment will be made over five years.

“The next decade will be defined by the automation of the automobile, and autonomous vehicles will have as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago,” said Ford President and CEO Mark Fields. “As Ford expands to be an auto and a mobility company, we believe that investing in Argo AI will create significant value for our shareholders by strengthening Ford’s leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in the near term and by creating technology that could be licensed to others in the future.”

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