BlackBerry division QNX wants to accelerate software development for cars

At CES, the Canadian company BlackBerry presented a development platform for embedded systems that can be used to create digital cockpits for vehicles. The business unit formerly known as BlackBerry IoT is now called QNX (pronounced Kjunix).

With "QNX Cabin", car manufacturers can design digital cockpits virtually in the cloud. Developers can use it to write, test and refine their code before it is ported to system-on-chip (SoC) hardware. They are therefore independent of a fixed location and defined hardware. According to BlackBerry, QNX works with all major hardware platforms apart from Tesla, such as Nvidia and Qualcomm.

Functions for such cockpits combine infotainment systems, air conditioning, driver assistance systems and a digital instrument cluster that provides information about vehicle parameters. QNX Cabin is intended to combine safety-critical functions such as driver assistance, which run on the certified QNX operating system, with external systems such as Android Automotive.

QNX Cabin relies on the open interface for virtual machines VirtIO. Car manufacturers should be able to adapt the platform, for example to integrate touch, voice and gesture control.

Developer platform for software-defined vehicles

Together with Vector from Stuttgart and TTTech Auto from Vienna, QNX wants to set up a platform to develop software-defined vehicles. Vector produces software tools for networked car electronics. TTTech Auto was founded by the TTTech Group, Audi, Infineon and Samsung to develop a secure platform for autonomous driving.

The aim is to integrate various components of a vehicle software platform, reduce variants, increase software quality and stability, reduce maintenance costs and ultimately produce market-ready cars more quickly. However, the parties involved do not want to announce details until the 2026 financial year.

Free QNX software for developers

The provider wants to get developers used to its technology with free software. Through the "QNX Everywhere" initiative, BlackBerry wants to give students, schools, research institutions and hobby users free access to the QNX Software Development Platform (SDP) 8.0. Developers will receive a single user license for non-commercial use, a quick-start system image for Raspberry Pi 4 and associated add-ons, as well as access to tutorial content.

BlackBerry wants to help train a future generation of software engineers – on its own software, mind you. The initiative includes GitLab and GitHub communities as well as QNX developer forums on Reddit (r/QNX) and Stack Overflow (#QNX).

Heise Medien is an official media partner of CES 2025.

(akr)