Red Hat partners to drive innovation in software-defined vehicles

Red Hat has announced the development of a partner ecosystem focused on integrating silicon, middleware, application software, and services with the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System for future software-defined vehicles.

The automotive sector is undergoing a transformation towards software-centric vehicle architectures, which requires new forms of collaboration among industry participants. Red Hat is actively seeking strategic partnerships with a range of technology experts, including silicon vendors, independent software vendors, tier-1 suppliers, and systems integrators, to ensure its platform supports this shift.

Red Hat's strategy is to provide automakers with a wider choice of trusted solutions for deploying its in-vehicle operating system. By collaborating across the ecosystem, Red Hat aims to help accelerate development cycles, simplify integration, and enable vehicles to deliver enhanced user experiences.

Francis Chow, Vice President and General Manager, In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge at Red Hat, said: "The automotive industry is experiencing a significant shift, as more and more automakers and suppliers turn to open source for software-defined vehicles. Red Hat acknowledges that navigating this complex evolution requires highly strategic, targeted collaborations in order to meet the rigorous requirements of automotive. By proactively building a partner ecosystem of technology experts and suppliers, Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System is poised to reshape the world of automotive and empower the industry on its transformative journey to software-defined vehicles."

Red Hat works with silicon partners to enable software portability through hardware abstraction, which is intended to speed up software development while maintaining access to advanced hardware features. Middleware and software vendors contribute to the seamless operation of critical vehicle applications. Systems integrators are collaborating to deliver end-to-end solutions to further optimise design speed and reduce validation times.

Bruno Putman, Vice President, Automotive Go-to-market and Alliances at Arm, remarked: "This era of automotive innovation relies on a strong software ecosystem to deliver advanced features that drivers have come to rely on. In collaboration with Red Hat, we ensure Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System supports Arm automotive architectures and enable the development of mixed critical automotive software with open collaboration through SOAFEE, accelerating automotive software design built on Arm."

Uwe Brandenburg, Chief Technology Officer, Automotive & Manufacturing Industry, DXC Technology, added: "Together with Red Hat, DXC is helping automotive manufacturers accelerate their journey to autonomous driving. By leveraging Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System within our software-defined vehicle solutions, we're enabling a secure, reliable, and scalable foundation for real-time, safety-critical workloads — driving innovation without compromising performance."

Christian Uebber, Chief Technology Officer, ETAS, said: "I congratulate Red Hat on achieving its first functional-safety certification for Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System. Having reviewed the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System Safety Guidance Manual, I can confirm that this milestone is a significant step forward for ASIL-B safety in open source software. An exceptional amount of work has clearly gone into this – this is real progress."

Jack Weast, Intel Fellow, Vice President and General Manager, Intel Automotive, commented: "Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System plays a crucial role in advancing software-defined architectures within the automotive industry. Intel Automotive is pleased to collaborate as a key partner, and with Red Hat's extensive experience of more than 30 years on Intel Architecture, our combined efforts are set to contribute significantly to the evolution of software-defined solutions in the automotive sector."

Chang Sukjin, Head of Smart Mobility Laboratory, CTO Division, LG Electronics, stated: "The collaboration between LG Electronics and Red Hat marks a pivotal step in accelerating innovation in software-defined vehicles. By combining Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System with LG Electronics' software-defined vehicle middleware technologies, we are setting a new standard for a stable and flexible vehicle software platform, driving the future of the mobility ecosystem."

Ray Cornyn, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Automotive Processors, NXP Semiconductors, gave his perspective: "Open source software is a catalyst to automotive innovation. Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System helps address a key challenge in advancing software-defined vehicles – combining the rapid evolution of a community-driven platform with the safety rigor required in real-time vehicle systems. At NXP, we welcome the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System safety certification that is supported by NXP's S32G safety-certified vehicle network processors, as a major step forward. This collaboration reflects our shared vision of a future where software-defined vehicles redefine mobility."

Nico Hartmann, Ph.D, Chief Technology Officer, Qorix GmbH, said: "The increasing complexity of software-defined vehicles demands robust, flexible and secure software architectures. Safety-certified Linux, powered by open source, is a key enabler for this transformation. By integrating our powerful Qorix middleware with Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, we see a strong opportunity to efficiently implement mixed-criticality use cases in a future-proof way. We are excited to be part of a growing ecosystem, driving innovation for the mobility of tomorrow."

Juhapekka Niemi, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Qt Group, stated: "We're excited to collaborate with Red Hat to help accelerate the future of software-defined vehicles. Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System is a big step forward for software-defined vehicle development. Together with Qt Safe Renderer, we are helping automakers develop modern embedded systems that are both functionally safe and dependable."

Marco Di Benedetto, Senior Vice President, Engineering, Sonatus, explained: "Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System offers an important base for a growing range of automotive applications spanning different vehicle domains, and this most recent safety certification expands its applicability into many types of safety-critical systems. Sonatus technology has been ported to Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System and we have been working with Red Hat to show how our combined solutions can accelerate the shift to software-defined vehicles in a range of important applications."

Narasimham RV, President, Engineering Services, Tech Mahindra, said: "The transition from hardware-centric architectures to software-first paradigms necessitates open, modular, and safety-aware operating systems. Tech Mahindra is at the forefront of this shift, utilizing our full-stack capabilities from silicon to software and supporting global OEMs in building scalable, future-ready software-defined vehicle (SDV) platforms. Our collaboration with Red Hat enables both organizations to jointly accelerate time to market and deliver innovative mobility solutions tailored to the needs of our customers."

Artem Aginskiy, Product Line Manager, High-Performance Processors, Texas Instruments (TI), commented: "Our collaboration with Red Hat represents an important milestone in the evolution toward the software-defined vehicle. With TI's high-performance automotive hardware platforms and Red Hat's cutting-edge work to deliver a Linux offering that addresses functional safety requirements, developers now have access to the vast Linux-based open source ecosystem to enable innovation and accelerate time to market."

Shinpei Kato, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, TIER IV, and Founder, Autoware Foundation, said: "Red Hat has been an invaluable partner to TIER IV and the Autoware Foundation in advancing a software-defined vehicle reference implementation, enabling the Autoware open-source autonomous driving software to seamlessly run on Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System. We are excited about the possibilities this open source-based autonomous driving reference platform unlocks, and we believe it will play a vital role in accelerating the deployment of safe, secure, and scalable autonomy solutions across the automotive industry."

Dongchao Xu, Chief Executive Officer, ThunderX, stated: "As the intelligent automotive industry rapidly evolves, open source technology remains pivotal to innovation. ThunderX, specializing in intelligent driving domain controllers and high-performance computing (HPC) platforms, is proud to collaborate with Red Hat. Together, utilizing Red Hat technologies, we are advancing an open source automotive ecosystem to accelerate the software-defined future of mobility."