UPDATED 04:56 EDT / AUGUST 28 2015

NEWS

Intel bets big on drones with $60 million Yuneec investment

Intel Corp. has made its biggest investment into drone technology yet, injecting more than $60 million into China’s Yuneec International as it looks for ways to compensate for the declining PC market.

The two firms took the rather unusual step of producing a short video to explain the collaboration, saying that they’re going to work together to build future products for both consumer and industrial use cases. They didn’t provide any details beyond that, however.

What we do know about Yuneec is that it’s already built a range of drones that specialize in aerial photography and imaging. Yuneec also develops technology for small, electronic aircraft flown by real pilots.

“We’ve got drones on our roadmap that are going to truly change the world and revolutionise the drone industry,” Intel chief Brian Krzanich said in the video. “At Intel, we believe in a smart and connected world, and one of the best ways to bring that smart and connected world to everyone everywhere has been drones.”

Intel has actually made two previous investments in drone companies, which shows just how deadly serious the company is in this endeavor. The chip giant led a $10 million series funding round in PrecisionHawk in November of last year, before making an undisclosed investment in Airware this April – moves which analysts say were made to ensure it isn’t left behind by ARM-based chip maker rivals like Qualcomm Inc., which led a $50M funding round into the U.S. drone maker 3D Robotics Inc. last February.

Besides the chip makers, companies like Amazon.com Inc., Facebook and Google are also pursuing their own drone projects, while Sony Corp. has launched a separate drones business unit.

According to Bloomberg, which first reported Intel’s latest investment, said the relationship with Yuneec fits with Intel’s plan to invest in companies developing new technologies that could potentially expand the market for semiconductors. As SiliconANGLE has reported before, Intel is desperate to diversify its business away from the declining PC business, and it hasn’t been helped by its toothless efforts at penetrating the mobile device market.

Intel has made big investments in other areas too, such as the $900 million it threw at Hadoop company Cloudera Inc. last year.

Photo Credit: ROGU ! via Compfight cc

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU