Tesla acquired DeepScale, a startup that develops AI-powered computer vision technologies, in a move that appears to further the company’s goal to create fully autonomous vehicles.
Tesla’s purchase of DeepScale for an undisclosed amount will help the company bring a greater depth of AI technology to the company’s fleet of vehicles. The DeepScale company is a good fit for Tesla, as the company has an enormous database of vehicle information that the highly-skilled team at DeepScale can use to improve autonomous driving models. In addition to bringing autonomous vehicles to the public, this acquisition may help Tesla compete with Uber by developing an autonomous rideshare offering.
“DeepScale is a great fit for Tesla because the company specializes in compressing neural nets to work in vehicles, and hooking them into perception systems with multiple data types,” said Chris Nicholson, who is the CEO and founder of Skymind. “That's what Tesla needs to make progress in autonomous driving.”