Intel Acquires Itseez to Continue Expanding IoT And Autonomous Car Technologies

Chip maker Intel has been making strides to increase its relevance in the emerging Internet of Things and, particularly, the autonomous car industry.  This was the reasoning behind the company’s acquisition of Itseez, a startup focused on computer vision and machine learning.

While this is the only information the company has made available to the public, this deal is certainly perking up ears.   Of course, this new partnership will now put the the Santa Clara, CA-based company at the charge to dive into emerging markets, connecting technology and automobiles and industrial inspection.  This is according to Doug Davis, who is a senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Internet of Things Group.

He said, in a recent online post, “Itseez will become a key ingredient for Intel’s Internet of Things Group road map and will help Intel’s customers create innovative deep-learning-based [computer vision] applications like autonomous driving, digital security and surveillance, and industrial inspection. Together, we’ll step up our contribution to these standards bodies – defining a technology bridge that helps the industry move more quickly to OpenVX-based products.”

Furthermore, Eurotech vice president of marketing Hilary Longo says, “This latest acquisition gives Intel an entry in the autonomous cars arena.”  Eurotech is an Intel partner based in Columbia, MD; Longo goes on to say, “As with any company enabling IoT-based technology or enterprises deploying it, the real success comes when you have the full solution, integrating hardware and software, to take advantage of the data coming from the video streams, machine learning and detailed algorithms for analysis and action. Eurotech strongly supports that integrated approach to achieve positive business impacts.”

Of course, this is not Intel’s first foray into Internet of Things development; and they have been doing quite well in this expansion.  After all, Intel’s first-quarter earnings report showed that their Internet of Things segment expanded 22 percent over the same quarter the previous year.

As a matter of fact, Intel reports that 40 percent of their revenue actually comes from this IoT department and the data center. Obviously, these are also the company’s most significant areas of growth.  With the global PC market on the decline, a processing chip company like Intel, of course, needs to find new outlets and other revenue sources. It seems they have been making all the right moves.

Unfortunately, though, this shift in focus could put as much as 11 percent of their workforce at risk; Intel has reported they will likely be cutting about 12,000 jobs.