Ford invests billion dollars in start-up that makes AI for self-driving cars

Ford is investing $1 billion in a start-up focused on developing AI for self-driving cars. The company, called Argo AI, was founded by former employees of Google and Uber and has been around since this year.

Argo AI’s developers will partner with existing engineers Ford already has on similar types of projects. The American automaker states that the technology it is developing may be made available under license to other automakers. Ford’s first almost fully self-driving car should be launched in 2021, the company said. Currently, a billion dollars is worth about 940 million euros.

Ford is working towards producing a so-called level 4 self-driving vehicle. That is a vehicle that can drive itself under almost all conditions. Exceptions are situations such as extreme weather conditions. This system can be turned on and off manually and the driver does not have to do anything when it is on.

Argo AI was founded by Bryan Saleski and Peter Rander. The two are graduates of the Carnegie Mellon National Robotics Engineering Center and have worked on self-driving car technology at Google and Uber respectively. With the investment, Ford has a majority stake in the company.

Ford and other companies such as Google, Uber, Apple as well as other automakers are also researching technology for self-driving cars. It looks like the technology has the potential to revolutionize traffic and no company involved wants to lag behind the others. The amount Ford comes up with is not entirely unusual. Last year, General Motors put a similar amount into a similar start-up.