Ford Investing In AI Company To Bring Self-Driving Car To Market

Ford is investing $1 billion over the course of five years into an artificial intelligence startup based in Pittsburgh called Argo AI that will help the motor company develop the autonomous system for a self-driving vehicle.

“From an accounting standpoint, [Argo AI] is a subsidiary,” Ford CEO Mark Fields today at an event in San Francisco, according to a report in The Verge. “But in terms of how they’re operating and how we’re structuring the board, this gives them a lot of independence.”

The Verge reports that the company was founded by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander. Salesky is a veteran of Google's self-driving team while Rander led Uber's autonomous efforts up until September 2016.

"Ford may be one of the largest American companies, but it does not have pockets as deep as Apple and Google," The Verge notes. "That makes this $1 billion investment a significant push to own the expertise of some of the robotics world’s brightest and most experienced self-driving experts."

Read the full report at The Verge.

Photo credit: www.hacienda-la-colora.com via Flickr