NVIDIA has been working on autonomous vehicles for over 20 years as part of their bet the company effort to corner the market for AI hardware. The advantage of having a standard operating system (OS) for a car is that it is far easier to create standard user interfaces, integrate third-party hardware and software, and make aftermarket improvements and fixes far more common.

At CES 2025, NVIDIA highlighted the advantages of their DriveOS, their first ground-up operating system for automobiles, which promises to help advance automotive technology significantly while potentially creating a higher level of quality, less disruptive and more common software upgrade and repair processes, and a far tighter focus on automobiles than competitors like Blackberry’s QNX.

Drive OS vs. QNX

Until recently, Blackberry’s very secure QNX operating system was the most common in modern cars. It was valued because of its security and maturity, having been standardized in nuclear power plants years ago. But QNX has a broad set of uses, and its use as an automotive OS has been relatively recent in its lifespan.

So, while QNX is one of the most secure operating systems in the market being used for cars and has some of the same advantages as any cross-OEM operating system supplied by a 3rd party, it also wasn’t designed for cars but retrofitted to them, making it potentially less ideal than a purpose-built OS for cars. 

DriveOS, on the other hand, stems from NVIDIA’s deep understanding of personal computers and cars, meaning it is potentially easier to patch and update, and it already has many of the hardware drivers needed for today’s cars. It better integrates with NVIDIA’s automotive solutions, including their ever-more advanced autonomous driving solutions.  

It was developed in conjunction with NVIDIA’s automotive OEM partners; it is based on Linux so that there are plenty of programmers who know how to work with it, and given NVIDIA leads the world right now with AI hardware, it provides what should be a lower cost, more reliable, path to creating ADAS systems (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). 

NVIDIA’s DriveOS sits on top of their technology stack, which includes their DGX platform for creating AI solutions; Omniverse, their solution for simulation-based training for robotics and vehicles; Drive AGX, their ADAS solution, and their host of developer tools to create a framework so that any car company can bring to market and advanced automotive solution relatively quickly. 

This isn’t to say QNX is bad, it isn’t, it is one of Blackberry’s most successful products, only that it is generally better to have an OS that is purpose built over one that has been modified from something else. For instance, Microsoft took Windows, built for PCs, and then tried putting it in phones and cars, but neither effort worked well. Google created Android for phones, which has been more successful because it was purpose-built, not converted.  

Wrapping Up: NVIDIA’s Drive OS Should Displace QNX In Cars Over Time

Given that it is purpose-built and provided by a far more powerful and better-funded company than Blackberry, DriveOS should become a more substantial automotive standard over time. This is due to both the focus of the OS on cars and NVIDIA’s far greater financial resources to develop the platform than Blackberry currently has, giving DriveOS the more significant potential to dominate this segment.

The bigger problem for both DriveOS and QNX is that automotive OEMs tend to be very “not invented here” oriented and haven’t yet learned the lesson of the tech market, which demonstrates that specialization is a better path forward.  So, part of the problem both Blackberry and NVIDIA have is that the automotive customer base isn’t a fan of either approach, even though both are generally better than what the OEMs now have. 

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst covering automotive technology and battery developments at Torque News. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.