Ford announced last Saturday that it will invest US$1 billion (A$1.303 billion) into the Argo artificial intelligence (AI) system for its upcoming self-driving car, according to Forbes.
The aim of the investment is to create a virtual driver system for the autonomous vehicle it plans to deliver in 2021.
Ford global president and chief executive officer Mark Fields said in a statement that AI will be as significant to driving as moving assembly line was last century.
“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,” Fields said.
“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.”
The company will be Argo AI’s majority stakeholder, though the start-up to be semi-autonomous. The start-up will be steered by chief executive officer Bryan Salesky and chief operating officer Peter Rander, who previously led autonomous vehicle development efforts at Google and Uber, respectively.