Once the phone of choice for U.S. presidents, the “washed-up” Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry has announced the IPU-03 system, a mass-produced autonomous driving domain controller, will be used in Chinese electric vehicle startup Xpeng’s newly launched P7 electric sports sedans.

Powered by BlackBerry’s QNX OS for Safety operating system, the IPU-03 provides the foundation for building a safety-critical system. The IPU-03 was co-developed by BlackBerry in conjunction with Chinese car parts maker Desay SV Automotive, and is able to make safe driving decisions by calculating vehicles’ driving status and analyzing their 360-degree environment in real time, according to a statement released by BlackBerry on Monday.

Launched in April, the P7 is touted by Xpeng as a super-long range smart electric vehicle as it is fitted with an autonomous driving system featuring 12 ultrasonic sensors, five millimeter-wave radars and 14 cameras.

Xpeng aside, BlackBerry has also forged a partnership with Chinese search engine giant Baidu, with particular focus on self-driving technology and robotaxi services. In 2018, BlackBerry and Baidu inked a deal which allowed the Canadian company’s QNX to serve as the operating system for the Chinese firm’s open-source Apollo self-driving platform.

As part of the agreement, the two companies said they would also integrate Baidu’s CarLife, a software system connecting smartphones with internet-connected cars, conversational artificial intelligence system DuerOS and high-definition maps with the QNX platform.

Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com)

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