Canadian Engineers Built the Software Inside Your Car and America Didn't See It Coming

There is a computer on your driveway, and a layer of it may have been written by Canadian engineers in Ottawa. The company behind it is the one most people forgot: BlackBerry. The QNX operating system started in Kanata in 1980, passed through the American audio company Harman, and came back to Canada when Research In Motion bought it in 2010. After BlackBerry stopped designing phones in 2016 and switched off its classic network in 2022, QNX became the core of the company. Today it sits in more than 275 million vehicles and in cars from General Motors, Audi, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz. BMW chose it for the safety-critical systems of the Neue Klasse. In September 2026, Coretura, the joint venture of Daimler Truck and Volvo Group based in Gothenburg, selected the QNX and Vector platform Alloy Kore, the largest design win in QNX history. The same week, QNX reported record revenue of 80.3 million dollars and BlackBerry raised its full-year forecast to between 616 and 636 million dollars. What makes this different from every other "lab breakthrough" story: the products are already shipping and the numbers are independently certified. Canada could not outspend Apple, so it kept the code that has to work, and that code is now riding along in your car. 🔔 Subscribe to Ion Frontier for more deep dives on Canadian innovation that the rest of the world hasn't caught up to yet. #BlackBerry #QNX #CarTech #CanadianInnovation Photos: Wikimedia Commons — authors by license (file names and links on each author's Commons page): CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0): Kārlis Dambrāns; textlad; Doc Searls; The Conmunity - Pop Cultu; Patricia Drury; Blondinrikard Fröberg; Andre Recnik from Waterloo; Laurel L. Russwurm from Ca; Derek Hatfield; Marie Mosley; Riley from Christchurch, N; zombieite; cooldudeandy01; Maurizio Pesce from Milan,; Steve Jurvetson from Menlo CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0): Slcreza; Jud McCranie; Matti Blume; Alexander Migl; Nikolai Bulykin; Axadem; Beamish4; Scoutguy5427; Harleyd613; Andrepoiy; Ethan Llamas; Mister rf; Raimond Spekking; Fil22plm; Transport For NSW (https:/; Grendelkhan; Michael Shick; Sven Volkens; Willy Jackson; Lawrence monkhouse; Holger Uwe Schmitt; Vera.vvo; Alpsdake; Arnaud.guirouvet; Mariordo (Mario Roberto Du; Maximopi CC BY-SA 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0): Nobuyuki Kondo; Jon; Robert Elder; Flickr user 'gloom'; Ross Dunn Public domain: Crisco 1492; Jelsova; Raimond Spekking; LP-mn; Korbitr CC0: Cutlass; Kazyakuruma; Tokumeigakarinoaoshima; Syced CC BY 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0): qwesy qwesy; Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungat CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0): Zvivi; Zuzu; A7N8X; Ruben de Rijcke; w:en:Rune.welsh CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0): Szeremeta; Владимир Новиков; LukaszKatlewa CC BY-SA 2.5 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5): P199; André Karwath aka Aka CC BY-SA 3.0 it (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0): Pava TAGS blackberry, qnx, canadian engineers, software in your car, car software, blackberry qnx ottawa, software defined vehicle, alloy kore, coretura volvo daimler, bmw neue klasse qnx, automotive operating system, canada technology, blackberry comeback 2026, ion frontier PINNED COMMENT QUESTION Would you trust the safety systems in your next car to the company behind your old BlackBerry? THUMBNAIL (thumb_H.jpg) — PHOTO CREDITS (paste at the end of the description) Thumbnail photos (Wikimedia Commons): • AI-generated image (Higgsfield / GPT Image), references: – Mark Carney neutral background (blue) — Lea-Kim — CC BY-SA 4.0