Computer chip maker Intel is acquiring driverless technology firm Mobileye for £12.5bn.

The Israeli company's technology is already in vehicles from 27 car makers including Audi, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla and Volvo, operating automatic emergency braking and semi-autonomous cruise control systems.

Mobileye collision avoidance systems perform real-time scene interpretation, analyzing different objects on the road, classifying their meaning and determining if action is needed

Intel estimates the vehicle systems, data and services market opportunity to be up to $70 billion by 2030. 

“We expect the growth towards autonomous driving to be transformative. It will provide consumers with safer, more flexible, and less costly transportation options, and provide incremental business model opportunities for our automaker customers,” said Ziv Aviram, Mobileye Co-Founder, President and CEO.

“By pooling together our infrastructure and resources, we can enhance and accelerate our combined know-how in the areas of mapping, virtual driving, simulators, development tool chains, hardware, data centers and high-performance computing platforms. Together, we will provide an attractive value proposition for the automotive industry.”