Why Intel believes 5G wireless will make autonomous cars smarter

The Internet of Things is expected to grow quickly to tens of billions of connected devices, from smart refrigerators to smart showers to smart cruise ships. And pretty soon, it's going to extend to smart cars, Intel demonstrated at its recent autonomous cars event in San Jose, Calif. But Intel knows that we'll have to get data in and out of those cars at rates that are much faster than today's LTE mobile networks can handle. And that's why Rob Topol, general manager of Intel's 5G business and technology, believes that 5G wireless networking will be like the "oxygen" for self-driving cars. Intel is making 5G modem chips to transfer data at gigabits a second over wireless networks in the future, perhaps as early as 2020. Topol believes this wireless networking will enable self-driving cars to communicate with connected infrastructure. That infrastructure will help the cars process sensor, safety, and information for the car and return the results quickly to the cars.