United States chip giant Intel will by Israeli driverless technology firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion.
The $63.54 per share cash deal is the world’s biggest purchase of a company solely focused on the autonomous driving sector. Mobileye accounts for 70pc of the global market for advanced driver-assistance and anti-collision systems.
Intel said it expected the transaction to close within the next nine months and to immediately boost its non-GAAP earnings per share as well as its free cash flow. The two companies are already collaborating with German automaker BMW on a project to put a fleet of around 40 self-driving test vehicles on the road in the second half of this year.
The deal is the largest yet in the market to provide the technology behind autonomous driving which is being fought over by groups like Alphabet’s Waymo, Tesla and Uber as well as several carmakers themselves. Mobileye makes vision-based safety systems including cameras and chips for cars based on its own machine learning algorithms, which can detect pedestrians, vehicles and traffic signs and help enable autonomous driving.
