Samsung Ups Its $8 Billion Bet on Self-Driving Cars
- Autonomous unit to offer open platform to challenge Mobileye
- Phonemaker also plows $300 million into car-tech startup fund
General South Korean Economy Ahead Of Preliminary Fourth-Quarter GDP Figures
Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Samsung Electronics Co. is upping its $8 billion bet on automotive technology, forming a separate business unit within Harman to house autonomous driving products and plowing $300 million into a new fund investing in startups in the space.
The autonomous driving unit will compete on everything from driving algorithms to systems integration, Dinesh Paliwal, Harman’s chief executive officer, said in a phone interview. That will include an advanced-driver assistance platform with open software that allows outside engineers to build products off of it -- a shot at Mobileye, which was acquired by Intel Corp. this year in a move that mirrored Samsung’s automotive leap.