Detroit Car Company Ford has made the biggest investment in self-driving technology by any car manufacturer ever. Ford acquired a majority stake in an artificial intelligence startup ‘Argo AI’ by investing $1 billion to fund the development of a self-driving brain.

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Ex-engineers from Uber and Google, who both graduated from Carnegie Mellon’s robotics institute founded Argo AI. The start-up specialises in developing AI software for self-driving cars. “From an accounting standpoint, [Argo AI] is a subsidiary,” said Ford CEO Mark Fields at an event in San Francisco. “But in terms of how they’re operating and how we’re structuring the board, this gives them a lot of independence.”

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Ford and Argo AI will work hand in hand to develop an autonomous system for a self-driving car and they hope to put this technology on the road by 2021. The two companies are also exploring the idea of licensing out the self-driving software to other car manufacturers.

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With Google and Apple in the self-driving car race, Ford hopes to make a significant contribution towards developing their own self-driving mechanism and is in line with their recent strategy to invest in autonomous hardware and software. With other companies like Uber, Tesla and now Ford joining in the race, it is good to know that self-driving cars might step out of the research phase and into the market sooner than expected.