Apple is working on making driverless cars, substantiates CEO Tim Cook

There has been some rumors about the tech giant working on driverless cars, but it was never been confirmed, until now. Recently there has been a buzz that Apple CEO Tim Cook has allegedly confirmed that the technology giant is working on driverless cars as part of its pains on develops autonomous systems. Though there are no other details that Cook offered about Apple's driverless cars, there are rumours that Apple's cars could be shown in public in 2019.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Cook confirmed that as a company they are focusing on self-driving technology. "We're focusing on autonomous systems," he said in the interview. "It's a core technology that we view as very important."

The tech giant was recently was been granted the license to run s0elf-driving vehicles on the streets of California in March. For the same, the company had first approached the California's Department of Motor Vehicles in 2015. However, it carried out most of AI car tests secretly avoiding creating a buzz. But the news of Apple testing self-driving cars got leaked and it first came into out when the company submitted a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in November 2016 in which it expressed its interest for AI cars.

"The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation," explained by Apple in the letter. The tech giant has kept its plan for AI cars under the hush-up for nearly two years now. This is for the first time that the company has gone about its AI cars.

"We sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects," Cook said in his latest interview, referring to the driverless cars. "Autonomy is what excites us and we'll see where it takes us."

Autonomous cars is one of the most important sections that the tech world is focussing on right now. There are reports that Apple employed over 1000 employees to assist on Project Titan car, codename for Apple's electric car team in year 2014. However, the company last year shelved its electric car plans and focussed again on AI cars.

Apple's AI car project when it hits the road, will compete against Google, Uber and Tesla. These companies are also focussing on self-driving cars. Google and Uber have already done the test run of their AI cars. Tesla's NVIDIA's Drive PX 2 - the supercomputer that will Tesla AI cars -has also been revealed in pictures.