Highlighting the importance of self-driving car technology to its future plans, Intel launched Wednesday a new brand for its software and hardware tools for the development of driverless vehicles.
The Intel GO brand, which was announced at CES in Las Vegas, includes a series of hardware and software development kits to help developers and engineers test and improve autonomous driving applications. Intel GO’s platform will take sensor data from cameras or radars on the vehicle and combine them with high-definition maps and artificial intelligence to determine the path the car is going to take, Doug Davis, senior vice president, of Intel Automated Driving Group, explained.
Intel is also launching under the new brand a 5G platform and a modem to help automakers develop and test a wide range of applications ahead of the expected rollout of 5G wireless systems in 2020.
“The importance of 5G to our self-driving future cannot be overstated,” Davis wrote in a blog post Wednesday morning. “Automated vehicles will both generate and take in huge amounts of data in order to navigate and react to sudden changes. Today’s communications systems simply were not designed to handle the massive bandwidth required to support this. That’s where 5G comes in, delivering faster speeds, ultra-low latency and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) connectivity for the era of automated driving.”
German automaker BMW, Intel, and Mobileye announced that a fleet of about 40 autonomous BMW cars using Intel GO tools will be on the road by the end of 2017.
The Intel GO brand launch follows a reorganization at Intel that included the creation of a new division dedicated to autonomous driving. The new division, called the Automated Driving Group, spun out of its Internet of Things business.
The restructuring follows a string of recent partnerships, acquisitions, and investments in autonomous driving technology, including a tie-up with German automaker BMW and Mobileye to produce self-driving cars for city streets.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich also announced in November that the company’s venture capital arm will invest $250 million over the next two years into autonomous vehicle technology.