It All Starts Here: QNX Drives Automotive Innovation at CES 2025

The 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) remains the premier platform for groundbreaking innovation, and this year, QNX® once again stood out, showcasing its transformative role in shaping secure, connected mobility.  

As the automotive industry accelerates toward smarter, more interconnected vehicles, QNX leads the charge with foundational software solutions that help OEMs develop standout vehicles faster, more efficiently, and with unwavering precision.  

At CES® 2025, QNX unveiled exciting advancements alongside a fresh new look as part of its rebrand. Through a series of dynamic demo stations, QNX highlighted three core themes:  

• Building the Community: With QNX Everywhere, we empower developers by fostering a robust ecosystem.  
• Cloud-First Approach: By enabling seamless integration, scalability, and future-ready solutions, QNX is redefining developer enablement.  
• Simplifying Complexity: With a commitment to open standards, a mixed-criticality approach, and world-class engineering practices, QNX ensures projects meet the highest standards of performance, safety, security, and reliability.

Here’s a closer look at the key announcements set to redefine the future of automotive technology.

Relaunch of the QNX Brand

At CES 2025, a divisional name change and the relaunch of the QNX brand was announced. The move represents an important milestone in QNX’s storied history and a recognition of its potential to play an even bigger role in powering the next generation of software-defined vehicles and mission-critical systems.

 “Relaunching the QNX brand is an important step in BlackBerry’s broader strategy to increase our visibility and fortify our leadership within the automotive and embedded industries, with a view to better positioning us for sustained growth and success,” said John J. Giamatteo, CEO at BlackBerry. “The values that QNX stands for have always been a cornerstone for our customers and this brand relaunch honors that strong history while setting the stage for the division to fire on all cylinders and drive smarter, safer, and faster innovation through precision-engineered performance.”

QNX Everywhere

QNX doubled down on developer support at CES 2025, fueling embedded software innovation. By making its high-performance foundational software more broadly available for non-commercial use, embedded systems learning, experimentation, and innovation are now easier on QNX.

“Software engineering is the cornerstone of our future, enabling us to tackle society's most complex challenges, from autonomous driving to robotic surgery,” said Grant Courville, SVP, Products and Strategy, QNX. “As our reliance on intelligent, connected technologies grows, initiatives like QNX Everywhere are crucial in making learning more accessible, providing developers with cutting-edge tools and technologies to fuel exploration, creativity, and problem-solving like never before. We’re thrilled to expand access to QNX software for non-commercial use on a large-scale basis for the first time ever, and we can’t wait to see the countless innovations it’s sure to spark."

As part of the rollout, QNX has added dedicated developer relations specialists who will actively engage within the GitLab and GitHub communities and QNX developer forums on Reddit (r/QNX) and Stack Overflow (#QNX).

Learn more about QNX Everywhere

Volvo EX90

At CES, a Volvo EX90 production vehicle running QNX software across multiple domains showcased the industry’s trust in QNX as the foundation for mission-critical systems. With over 255 million production vehicles worldwide powered by QNX, this demonstration highlighted its proven reliability, scalability, and domain flexibility.

In this vehicle, QNX powers the digital cockpit controllers (Qualcomm-based) with its safety-certified hypervisor, enabling safe and efficient virtualization. It also supports body controllers (Nvidia-based) with its ISO 26262 ASIL-D certified safety OS, managing critical functions like cameras, LiDAR, HVAC, and braking systems. For autonomous driving controllers, QNX leverages high-performance Nvidia processors to ensure consistent and reliable performance in complex environments.

This versatility across safety, infotainment, and advanced driver assistance systems underscores why leading automotive manufacturers continue to rely on QNX for their production vehicles.

QNX Cabin

QNX launched an industry-first automotive software Solution to accelerate digital cockpit development, simplifying the building of high-performance, software-defined digital cockpits for cutting-edge in-vehicle experiences.

QNX Cabin solves the problem of developing in mixed-criticality environments, blending safety-critical features (e.g. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) running on the safety-certified QNX® Operating System (OS) with consumer applications delivered via guest operating systems including Android Automotive and Linux.

“Designing, developing, and maintaining a digital cockpit is challenging, especially for globally deployed engineering organizations that rely on cloud-based development but still need safety, security, and reliability,” said John Wall, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Product, Engineering and Services at QNX. “We are committed to reducing developer friction, accelerating time to market, and enabling the creation of next-generation software-defined automotive experiences. QNX has built a legacy of trust and expertise across industries, including over two decades in automotive software. Today, we combine this foundation with a cloud-first embedded development approach to meet the evolving needs of our customers.”

Learn more about QNX Cabin

Microsoft and QNX Collaborate

Also at CES 2025, QNX announced a collaboration with Microsoft to make it easier for automakers to build, test, and refine software within the cloud, accelerating the development of Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs).

As part of the collaboration, the QNX Software Development Platform (SDP) 8.0 will soon be available on Microsoft Azure, providing developers with a robust and proven cloud environment to create, test, and integrate the software that will power next-generation automotive and IoT applications.

"This collaboration bolsters our commitment to empowering the automotive industry with cutting-edge technology to accelerate innovation," said Dayan Rodriguez, Corporate Vice President, Manufacturing & Mobility, Microsoft. "By combining the strengths of Microsoft Azure and QNX, we’re enabling OEMs to deliver on the promise of the Software-Defined Vehicle.”

Learn more about QNX on Microsoft Azure

QNX, Vector and TTTech Auto Join Forces

Together with Vector and TTTech Auto, QNX announced a multi-year, global agreement to collaborate, develop and market a foundational vehicle software platform that will end the cumbersome and costly process of software integration, empowering automakers to shift their focus to delivering innovative consumer-facing applications that build brand loyalty, differentiation, and value. The pre-integrated, lightweight vehicle software platform is certified to the automotive industry’s highest functional safety (ISO 26262 ASIL D) and security (ISO 21434) standards.

CES 2025 Final Thoughts

While CES often highlights technologies that are still years away from becoming reality, the innovations showcased by QNX are ready to drive transformation today. With proven solutions built for the present and the future, the road ahead for automotive innovation has never been clearer—or closer.

Related Reading

• QNX Automotive Software
• QNX Cabin
• QNX Everywhere