Intel’s self-driving car division files for IPO

The tech giant said in December that it wanted to list shares in Mobileye by the middle of 2022

Intel Corp.’s self-driving car division, Mobileye, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO), Bloomberg reported Monday (March 7), a few months after the chipmaker said it was planning to go public in the middle of 2022.

Intel, which has said it will still be Mobileye’s majority owner after the IPO, said in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it hasn’t determined how many shares it will offer in Mobileye or how much they will cost. The IPO will come after the SEC completes its review process.

Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 for about $15 billion. The company has projected that the automotive silicon market will reach $115 billion by the end of the 2020s.

The tech giant said in December that it wanted to list shares in Mobileye, which makes chips and software that work with sensors that handle autonomous vehicles’ data flows, by the middle of 2022.

Mobileye shipped its 100 millionth EyeQ chip system late last year. The system, according to Mobileye’s website, helps improve the processing of dozens of sensors, including high-resolution cameras and radars.

The company’s technologies can help, for example, differentiate a double-parked car from a traffic jam, according to firm. Those differences can be determined by using cues from the environment, spanning the behaviour of other users on the road, whether lights are flashing on the object ahead, or if doors have been left open.

Mobileye is slated to begin operations commercially by 2023.

In January, cab-less autonomous cargo vehicle the Transporter by Udelv, powered by Mobileye, was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.