If you’re following the race to build self-driving cars, and trying to track the various partnerships and pilot programs and hang-outs between tech companies and mapmakers and automakers themselves, sorry about that headache. Oh, and here’s one more.
Today, Ford announced it’s investing $1 billion over the next five years in Argo AI, a months-old startup run by Carnegie Mellon roboticists and engineers who really know their artificial intelligence stuff.
With this move, Ford tacitly acknowledges it lacks the know-how to deliver on its promise to put a fleet of self-driving cars on the road by 2021---and that it's not above bringing in a ringer. "With Argo AI’s agility and Ford’s scale, we’re combining the benefits of a technology startup with the experience and discipline we have at Ford,” says Ford CEO Mark Fields. In other words: You’re great at algorithms, we’re great at cars---let’s hang out.
Ford really does not want to call this an “acquisition,” but Argo AI will be smooshed into the automaker's existing robotics unit (with staff in the hundreds), doing work in Pittsburgh (home to Carnegie Mellon), Michigan, and Silicon Valley.
Carnegie Mellon robotics vets Bryan Salesky (a Google alum) and Peter Rander (an Uber veteran) will helm the project, and are currently recruiting a staff of 200. This is where things get tricky: Argo AI will still kinda function as a startup with its own board, it can offer equity to lure top-line engineers, and it retains the right to license whatever tech it creates to anyone. Of course, Ford will retain the largest stake in the fledgling company.
"They’re taking a lead on the autonomous vehicle platform and the design of the vehicle, we’re taking a lead on the virtual driver system, and we just need to make sure we end up in the same spot," Salesky says.
The world's endless complexity means you can't just program a robo-ride with the right response to every situation. Equipped with AI, cars could puzzle out novel situations on their own---how to react when, say, there’s emergency construction ahead. That's why last year, General Motors acquired Cruise, a startup using AI to develop self-driving technology. Uber poached dozens of Carnegie Mellon researchers to staff its own team.
Now Ford's in the game too, and one step closer to delivering on its promise to reshape the world of transportation for the 21st century.
