BlackBerry and Baidu have announced a collaboration through which the Canadian and Chinese companies will team up for a number of connected and autonomous vehicle initiatives. The duo have signed a statement of intent to make BlackBerry's QNX operating system the basis for Baidu's previously announced Apollo autonomous driving platform. As part of the tie-up, Baidu said it plans to integrate a number of its own software products into BlackBerry's QNX Car infotaintment platform, including CarLife, which integrates connected cars with smartphones; Baidu's DuerOS voice interaction system; and high-definition maps. "We aim to provide automakers with a clear and fast path to fully autonomous vehicle production, with safety and security as top priorities," said Li Zhenyu, general manager of Baidu's intelligent driving group. "By integrating the BlackBerry QNX OS with the Apollo platform, we will enable carmakers to leap from prototype to production systems. Together, we will work toward a technological and commercial ecosystem for autonomous driving, intelligent connectivity, and intelligent traffic systems."

BlackBerry QNX is off to a great start at CES 2017. Today they announced what they are calling their "most advanced and secure embedded software platform for autonomous drive and connected cars," which is also known as QNX SDP 7.0. "With the push toward connected and autonomous vehicles, the electronic architecture of cars is evolving – from a multitude of smaller processors each executing a dedicated function, to a set of high performance domain controllers, powered by 64-bit processors and graphical processing units. To develop these new systems, our automotive customers will need a safe and secure 64-bit OS that can run highly complex software, including neural networks and artificial intelligence algorithms. QNX SDP 7.0 is suited not only for cars, but also for almost any safety- or mission-critical application that requires 64-bit performance and advanced security. This includes surgical robots, industrial controllers and high-speed trains."