Intel Corp. said Monday it will buy driverless car technology company Mobileye Inc. in a deal valued at $15.3 billion, or $63.54 a share.
Mobileye, based out of Jerusalem, makes the technology used for autonomous vehicles via the use of its computer-aided EyeQ chips and algorithms that allow a car to “see” traffic signs, car lanes, people, animals, cyclists, obstructions and other factors that might be on the road to help avoid potential accidents. Mobileye’s technology is or will be in cars from more than 25 automakers, Intel said in an announcement on the deal.
Intel chief executive officer Brian Krzanich called Mobileye’s technology “the industry’s best automotive-grade computer vision” and said the acquisition “can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost for automakers.”
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“We expect the growth towards autonomous driving to be transformative,” Mobileye cofounder, president and ceo Ziv Aviram said. “It will provide consumers with safer, more flexible, and less costly transportation options, and provide incremental business model opportunities for our automaker customers.”
Autonomous vehicles, which Intel said will eventually turn cars into moving data centers, hold implications for retail as brands explore what that future could hold for on-demand delivery models or what shopping centers — in the way of parking or traffic flow — could look like in the future.
It’s something shopping center owners, such as Rick Caruso and Westfield Corp., have already begun thinking about. Caruso last year formed a Strategic Development and Innovations division focused on new technologies such as driverless cars, beacons and sensors with the company’s Palisades Village project expected to be an incubator of new technology.
Intel expects the all-cash deal to close within nine months.
Shares of Mobileye, which had a recent market value of $10.48 billion, jumped about 30 percent in pre-market trading Monday on news of the deal.