US automaker, Ford has announced its plans to invest $1bn (£800m) over the next five years in the artificial intelligence (AI) firm, Argo.
Both companies will work together on developing a virtual driving system for driverless cars.
Ford has a target of releasing an autonomous car by the year 2021.
Argo, founded by CEO Brian Salesky and chief operating officer Peter Rander, who led self-driving car teams at Google and Uber respectively will by its investment have Ford as majority shareholder.
Commenting on the deal, Ford’s CEO, Mark Fields said: “The next decade will be defined by the automation of the automobile, and autonomous vehicles will have as significant an impact on society as Ford's moving assembly line did 100 years ago".
Currently, the auto giant has two autonomous cars licensed for testing in California. However recent report revealed that they only covered 590 miles in 2016. A human driver had to intervene thrice in the controls and twice to abort lane changes at a time when its counterparts, BMW reported 638 miles with one disengagement of autonomous control, and Google 636,000 miles with 124 disengagements respectively.
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