At AWS re:Invent 2022, BlackBerry Limited announced an extension of its use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) that will make BlackBerry QNX technology available to mission-critical embedded systems developers for the first time ever in the cloud, reducing time to market for their products.
BlackBerry has demonstrated the company’s Real Time Operating System (RTOS) along with its artificial intelligence (AI) data platform, BlackBerry IVY, running natively on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, powered by AWS Graviton2 processors.
The BlackBerry QNX RTOS running in the cloud functions as a cloud-native developer workbench and can be used independently, or in conjunction with, BlackBerry IVY, a cloud connected automotive AI platform co-developed by BlackBerry and AWS.
With the increased power and performance afforded by being able to access the QNX Neutrino RTOS in the cloud, industries such as automotive, robotics, medical devices, industrial controls, aerospace and defence and others stand to benefit from reduced development time, while ensuring software reliability through testing, verification, and validation, the companies state.
Grant Courville, Vice President, Product Management and Strategy, BlackBerry QNX, says, “Arming our customers with our foundational QNX software products in the cloud is a game changer for embedded developers as they will have easy access and scale available at their fingertips.
“For developers of mission-critical embedded systems, this will help them accelerate collaboration and velocity across the entire product development and deployment lifecycle. With our trusted, industry-leading OS soon to be available on AWS, we’re confident the potential for efficiencies and cost savings will resonate across the IoT industry.”
For instance, in the automotive industry, the average car now contains more than 100 million lines of code and both consumers and global regulators are driving demand for enhanced features and capabilities. With this, the complexity of the overall in-vehicle electronic architecture continues to grow.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are under enormous pressure to prototype, test, and validate their entire vehicle’s software ecosystem while meeting standards for functional safety (ISO 26262) and cybersecurity (ISO 21434).
Accessing the AWS-powered, cloud-native BlackBerry QNX RTOS will help address some of these challenges and reduce ‘developer friction’ by making it possible for automakers to streamline their development efforts as they work to deliver the software-defined vehicles of tomorrow, the company states.
As one of the first applications, select customer developers will be able to fully leverage cloud instances of BlackBerry IVY, the company states.
Wendy Bauer, General Manager of AWS Automotive, says, “Connecting our partners with other leaders around the technology that is transforming industries is what powers the innovation possible on AWS.
"Unlocking the potential of the cloud via our Graviton2 processors and seeing the ways companies like BlackBerry are making meaningful change - and helping enable hardware parity in automotive development - is energising for AWS and the industry at large.”