Blackberry is to expand its strategic partnership with Chinese technology company Baidu, whose high-definition maps will run on Blackberry’s QNX Neutrino Real-time Operating System (RTOS) and will be mass-produced in the forthcoming GAC New Energy Aion models from the EV arm of GAC Group.
The partnership will build on an earlier agreement to make BlackBerry’s QNX operating system (OS) the foundation for Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving open platform. Notably, Baidu is one of the few high-definition map vendors with an Automotive SPICE certification from TÜV Rheinland, an industry certification that addresses rigid requirements for the software development process for Tier 1 and Tier 2 automotive suppliers.
Blackberry says that its QNX Neutrino RTOS foundation for Baidu’s high-definition maps is a robust real-time microkernel operating system that provides deterministic performance, as well as flexibility to address the limited resources of embedded systems.
“With BlackBerry QNX’s embedded software as its foundation, Baidu has made significant progress as part of its Apollo platform in establishing a commercial ecosystem for innovative technologies that OEMs can leverage for their next generation vehicles,” said Dhiraj Handa, VP, channel, partners and APAC, at BlackBerry Technology Solutions.
“We look forward to continuing to work closely with Baidu to help develop and deploy leading edge autonomous driving and connected vehicle technologies to meet the ever-increasing mission-critical and security requirements of the automotive industry.”