The Acquisition
In a recent news release, Intel has revealed its takeover of Moovit, a MaaS (Mobility as a Service) Solutions company, for $900 million. Moovit is an app that offers motility services to travellers around the world. It plans to be the best multimodal trip for you, by combining various means of urban movements like public transportation, bicycle and scooter services, ride-hailing, and car-sharing (more on Intel and auto-drive here). Moovit has established its leadership in the MaaS space with more than 800 million users and services in 3,100 cities across 102 countries. With its ginormous user base, the global MaaS leader has an equally massive transport data set.
Back in 2017, Intel took over Mobileye, and this acquisition cost a whopping $15.3 billion. Mobileye is a corporation that develops a vision-based self-driving car and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). This cool gizmo stuff essentially helps in preventing collisions and mitigating mishaps. ADAS is just one of a multitude of Mobileye’s innovations. The Israel-based company offers exciting tech like sensor fusion, mapping, front- and rear-facing cameras and so on.
How does any of this fit in with Intel?
The Plans
The computer processor giant has been eyeing the autonomous automobile sector for a while now. Mobileye has touted Cadillac’s Super Cruise, the closest thing to autonomous driving we have at present. Mobileye’s courtship of the flagship self-driver in the market has garnered a lot of attention leading to makers like Volkswagen, BMW, and Nissan giving their data to Mobileye for development. Mobileye says it is already collecting 6 million kilometres (3.7 million miles) of sensor data every day from vehicles on public roads.
The data collection process has gotten a lot easier with Moovit’s entrance. Moovit has the world’s largest transit data repository, and intel has now gained access to the repositories. Intel has been amassing data from many operators and agencies over the years. Now the data has enabled engineers at Mobileye to write predictive algorithms for self-driving vehicles.
Intel has the processors, Mobileye has the sensors and Moovit, the data. Intel is armed to set foot in the automobile arena, and is expecting a lot of chants and cheers. Intel’s Robotaxi venture is estimated to be a $160 billion opportunity by 2030, and it isn’t the only tech giant stepping in. Samsung, Huawei, IBM and even Qualcomm want to share a piece! The advent of these firms will mark an epoch in the automobile timeline. Some will innovate, some might renovate, the others will have to evacuate, and only time will tell who’s to reign. Â
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