“That is an arms race going on,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University focused on autonomous driving. “I don’t think they are late, but they have to execute, of course.”  The Santa Clara firm’s move comes as its business has been on the upswing after it missed the mobile-computing revolution and saw PC sales falter before it pivoted toward cloud computing and development of 5G wireless networks. Autonomous cars represent another new frontier in technology markets.

“It’s very wise for them to diversify,” Rajkumar said.