The CEO of Intel Corp. Brian Krzanich unveiled the US semiconductor giant’s first autonomous car and announced a new collaboration with China’s carmaker SAIC Motor, during a keynote opening address at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
The car includes 12 cameras, radars, laser scanners and computing technologies developed by Mobileye and Intel, according to a CNBC report. There are three high-resolution cameras at the front of the car that enable a 180-degree view field and the car image processor is able to see at a distance of up to 300 meters.
Intel bought the Jerusalem-based Mobileye for $15.3 billion in March.
As part of the collaboration announced, SAIC will develop self-driving vehicles in China based on Mobileye’s technology.
Intel also said that it would join forces with SAIC and NavInfo, a digital mapping company, to extend the crowdsourced map building that is necessary to roll out self-driving vehicles to China.
In his speech, Krzanich said that two million vehicles created by BMW, Nissan and Vokswagen will use Mobileye Road Experience Management (REM) technology to crowdsource data to build and update low-cost, scalable and high definition maps during this year.
Focused on the future of AI, Krzanich announced a partnership with Ferrari North America Inc. to use Intel’s AI technologies to apply data from the racetrack to improve the experience for fans and drivers.
“Data is going to introduce social and economic changes that we see perhaps once or twice in a century,” Krzanich said. “We not only find data everywhere today, but it will be the creative force behind the innovations of the future. Data is going to redefine how we experience life – in our work, in our homes, how we travel, and how we enjoy sports and entertainment.”
Intel also unveiled its new generation of Wifi chips that enable surfing at 40 percent higher speeds. The new 802.11ax chips were developed in Israel and will start shipping this year.
“There is good reason for the industry’s enthusiasm for 802.11ax,” said the general manager of Intel Wireless Infrastructure Group, Smart & Connected Home Division, Doron Tal in an emailed statement. “The new standard provides major improvements compared with 802.11ac. It is expected to provide a speed that is 40% faster than the current peak in transmitting data to a single customer’s device while improving the average supply to users by at least fourfold in a dense and crowded environment. It also makes networks more efficient and extends the life of customer device batteries.”
In his speech at CES, Krzanich introduced the newly established Intel Studios — a new state of the art studio dedicated to the production large-scale content for the next generation of immersive media. Immersive media opens a new world of storytelling possibilities with the ability to film from different perspectives. Directors can imagine scenes not just from the outside looking in, but from an inside-looking-out perspective. Viewers can be placed in the middle of the action, be given the ability to view from any perspective, and ultimately control the experience as they want.
Intel also said that Paramount Pictures will be the first major Hollywood studio to explore this technology together with Intel to see where this will lead for the next generation of visual storytelling.
In his speech Krzanich also referred to the chip design security issues discovered by researchers on some of Intel’s chips, and said that software fixes to address the recently discovered Meltdown and Spectre bugs in the chips will be released in the coming days, and that 90% of the processors and products developed in the past five years, would be fixed within a week.