Intel plans to list shares in self-driving car unit Mobileye

Intel Corp said on Monday it plans to take self-driving-car unit Mobileye public in the United States in mid-2022, a deal which could value the Israeli unit at more than $50 billion, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Chip giant Intel, the largest employer of Israel`s high-tech industry with nearly 14,000 workers, expects to retain Mobileye`s executive team and hold on to a majority ownership in the unit after the IPO.

Intel bought autonomous vehicle technology firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion in 2017, putting it into direct competition with rivals Nvidia and Qualcomm to develop driverless systems for global automakers.

Mobileye, founded in 1999, has taken a different strategy from many of its self-driving car competitors, with a current camera-based system that helps cars with adaptive cruise control and lane change assistance.

The company plans to eventually build its own "lidar" sensor to help its cars map out a three-dimensional view of the road and is using lidar units from Luminar Technologies on its initial robotaxis in the meantime.

Despite being owned by Intel, Mobileye has never used Intel`s factories to make its chips, instead relying on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co for all of its "EyeQ" chips to date.

The Wall Street Journal first reported