The deal hasn't been officially confirmed. We've asked Tesla for comment. However, it's clear that something is afoot. DeepScale chief Forrest Iandola stated on LinkedIn that he joined Tesla's Autopilot team "this week," and that he was working on autonomous driving. CNBC sources said that Tesla bought DeepScale "outright."

An acquisition would make sense. Elon Musk has stressed his belief that Tesla can rely on cameras for autonomy, rather than the bulky LiDAR units many others use. If that's going to happen, Tesla will need self-driving AI that can recognize a wide variety of road objects in less-than-ideal conditions. A buyout like this could bring it one step closer to that reality.