General Motors and Red Hat Inc., a provider of open source solutions, have announced a collaboration to help advance software-defined vehicles at the edge. The companies will aim to expand an ecosystem of innovation around the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, which provides a functional-safety certified Linux operating system foundation intended for the ongoing evolution of GM’s Ultifi software platform.
Red Hat’s cloud-native, enterprise-grade open source operating system accelerating the development of GM’s software-defined vehicle programs following Ultifi’s initial launch.
The companies says this will enable them to offer customers ‘more valuable features responsibly and reliably in a fraction of the typical development time’.
The integrated software is expected to support a variety of in-vehicle safety- and non-safety-related applications, including infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems, body control and connectivity.
Ultifi, GM’s end-to-end vehicle software platform, will launch in 2023.
Scott Miller, GM vice president, Software-Defined Vehicle and Operating System, says: “General Motors is now a platform company and working with Red Hat is a critical element in advancing our Ultifi software development. Incorporating the company’s expertise in open source solutions and enterprise networks will pay dividends as we aim to provide the most developer-friendly software platform in the industry. With Red Hat’s operating system as a core enabler of Ultifi’s capabilities, the opportunity for innovation becomes limitless.”
“With millions of lines of code sustaining critical systems like driver assistance, fuel economy and more, modern vehicles are more like mobile high performance computers than the cars of the past. The time to innovate is now,” adds Francis Chow, Red Hat vice president and general manager, In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge. “These new vehicles give our industries a chance to create a common open platform without sacrificing functional safety. By collaborating with GM on the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, we intend to bring the era of open source to the automotive world, benefiting automakers, ecosystem partners, and consumers.”
As a Linux-based system, Ultifi is designed to be universally usable for GM developers, suppliers and the developer community at large.
