Intel is going all-in on self-driving technologies this year — and putting its money where its mouth is. Intel has said it plans to spend $250 million over two years on autonomous vehicles (AVs). Additionally, the company reached an agreement to buy Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based auto vision company, for $15 billion.
All of this work is with good reason. Intel’s own report finds the market for AVs will grow from $800 billion to $7 trillion as autonomous vehicles get on the streets. The report also finds that self-driving cars could save over half a million lives in just 10 years.
Intel also just opened Silicon Valley Autonomous Vehicle Lab, a space for everything from working with data streams to testing self-driving BMW’s with Intel processors. The lab is run by Patti Robb, who previously worked with Intel’s IoT Group and helped create the company’s 5G strategy. Smart Cities Dive talked with Robb about Intel’s AV future, the lab and what’s it like to take a spin in an AV for the first time.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
I know the lab is pretty new, but what can you tell us about it?
PATTI ROBB: It's a state of the art vehicle lab, and I'm really proud of it. I think it's one of the first of it's kind in the industry. We have a 5G cell site there, we have a data center, and we have state of the art vehicles, and we’re loading the cars down with sensors. The cars generate significant amounts of data, four terabytes of data per hour. If you look at all the different types of sensors, if you think about it, you need to be able to drive any day, right? Those cars need to be able to operate in all different kinds of conditions, so think of the sensors as the eyes and the ears, and they're out collecting data as we're doing a drive, and learning. Then we bring that data back, and we load those drives into an ingestion server, and then that data is transferred over to the cloud. Then we'll do machine learning on that. We have all the state of the art capabilities here, which is really exciting.
"If you get autonomous cars on the road, we'll save lives. It'll bring mobility for all, and we can also have a lot less traffic on the road."
Patti Robb
Chief Strategist, Silicon Valley Autonomous Vehicle Lab, Intel
Our goal here is to be able to enable our partners and customers, to really be able to deliver industry leading autonomous driving experiences. That's one of the reasons we have the lab here. Another reason is there [are] over 30 partners in the Bay Area directly. We want to be where all the thought leadership is happening, and help contribute Intel's thought leadership to accelerating autonomous driving.
Do you think that the technology, when we are looking at a larger scale deployment, is going to look really different than it does today?
ROBB: I think we know the technologies that'll be used, but I think you don't always know the workloads, right? One of the things that we're doing is working to advance technologies across all three critical areas, the car, connectivity and cloud, and we're putting sensors on the car and then collecting data, and working to be able to analyze that data. One of the things is we have to look at what data should say on the car, what data should reside in the clouds, and what are the different workloads that are needed.
Is policy on track to match autonomous vehicle technology being more widely deployed?
ROBB: I think we're doing very well in policy areas, and I think everyone realizes that we need to work together. I think even the legislature is working to try to accelerate decision making on these things to be able to accelerate the pace, just given the benefits of autonomous vehicles. If you think about it, accelerating this has such life saving potential, so if you get autonomous cars on the road, we'll save lives. It'll bring mobility for all, and we can also have a lot less traffic on the road.
To reach their full potential, do autonomous vehicles need to wait for 5G?
ROBB: Autonomous vehicles don't require connectivity. Connectivity enhances them. We believe that cars need to be functionally safe on their own, but connectivity data definitely enhances that experience. If you imagine, for instance, you're driving down the road, and let's say we're in multiple cars, and you see a pothole ahead, you can signal back to my car and I'll know that there's a pothole ahead and I'll avoid that obstruction. Just that thing alone can help avoid collisions or accidents.
I wanted to hear about your journey to being the chief strategist for a program like this.
ROBB: I think if I were to sit and reflect, I think it's probably my history with new technology. I've been in new technology roles for about 22 years. I think the thing that drives and propels me as a passion is access to new technology, working on amazing projects, and then using those projects to improve peoples' lives. That's really a thread I've had in my career, and I could say this is probably the most exciting thing that I've worked on and it's the most transformational.
"I think the thing that drives and propels me as a passion is access to new technology, working on amazing projects, and then using those projects to improve peoples' lives."
Patti Robb
Chief Strategist, Silicon Valley Autonomous Vehicle Lab, Intel
I'll give an example. It might sound kind of funny, but my mom grew up in an area with no electricity or running water, or even indoor plumbing. It's kind of funny when I think about it, [now that] I'm in Silicon Valley, connecting everyone on the planet and working on autonomous vehicles.
As someone who's been working toward this for awhile, what was it like riding in one of these vehicles for the first time?
ROBB: It was amazing. Just realizing that all of this data is being collected, you're driving down the road, the car is moving autonomously, and no one is holding onto it, and that you're gathering data so that it can predict its path, it's amazing to me. I think it's just as transformational as that moment that my mother experienced when she got electricity or running water.
