Jaguar Land Rover is teaming up with BlackBerry, as the tech company is gearing up to develop a new software architecture for the automaker’s next generation of vehicles.
BlackBerry has announced that it would license its QNX operating system to JLR and provide a team of its own engineers to build a new computing structure, reports Autonews. The first stage of this partnership will be the development of a new in-car infotainment system.
The QNX unit, which has been used on car infotainment systems before, is expected to start generating revenue in 2019. It’s been designed for the “evolving instrument cluster,” according to BlackBerry, in anticipation that by the year 2021, over 82% of new vehicles will feature hybrid (that is, partly digital) instrument clusters, while 17.8% are expected to be fully digital.
“Connected and autonomous vehicles will react and drive based on rich data,” stated BlackBerry exec John Wall. “Automakers such as Jaguar Land Rover are realizing they need to take an active role in defining the software architecture for their vehicles.”
Powering these next-gen infotainment systems for JLR will probably be Qualcomm, which is said to supply the automaker with its processors.
Note: Range Rover Velar infotainment pictured