PETALING JAYA: BlackBerry Ltd believes Malaysia can move beyond manufacturing hardware to building intelligent machines and platforms as it bets on developing the country’s embedded software talent.
The Canadian software company said the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in vehicles, factories, medical devices, and industrial automation is shifting value creation beyond hardware to the software that enables machines to operate safely, securely, and in real time.
“As we move forward, it’s no longer hardware and software.
“It is hardware and software coming together, and this is where systems integration becomes very important,” BlackBerry vice-president of QNX Engineering and head of research and development for Asia-Pacific Rajkumar Jain told StarBiz.
He said Malaysia’s strong manufacturing, semiconductor, and electronics ecosystem provides a solid foundation to move into systems engineering and system architecture by combining hardware expertise with embedded software capabilities.
“My analogy is that existing hardware manufacturing is the body.
“By learning embedded software, you’re bringing the brains. When you have the brain and the body both in Malaysia, you move from making parts to making intelligent machines and platforms,” he said.
To help build that talent pipeline, BlackBerry has partnered with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), making it the first university in Asean to join the company’s QNX Everywhere programme.
Under the initiative, BlackBerry will train university lecturers, who will then teach students using the same commercial-grade QNX Software Development Platform (SDP) 8.0 used by customers across the automotive, medical, industrial and other safety-critical sectors.
Jain said the company expects to train hundreds of Malaysian students in the programme’s first year, with UKM potentially becoming a regional training hub for other universities across Asean.
“We’re really looking to create the next generation of talented embedded systems engineers,” he said.
The QNX Everywhere programme was launched globally in 2024 after BlackBerry made its QNX operating system (OS) available free for non-commercial use.
Previously, organisations had to purchase licences to access the software.
Jain said students and universities now receive the same software platform, training materials and development tools used by commercial customers.
“The whole purpose of the QNX Everywhere programme is to give everyone access to an industry-grade foundational operating system to build the next generation of software-defined embedded systems,” he said.
The initiative has already been introduced at more than 125 universities in India over the past 15 months, with about 400 lecturers certified and thousands of students trained.
QNX is BlackBerry’s real-time OS designed for safety-critical applications where reliability and predictable response times are essential.
The software serves as the foundational layer between hardware and applications, enabling systems to process data, execute tasks and make decisions within milliseconds.
Jain said this capability is becoming increasingly important as AI moves beyond cloud-based applications into physical systems.
“Today you have sensors and actuators generating enormous amounts of data.
“AI processes that data and makes decisions, but those decisions often have to happen in milliseconds or even microseconds. That’s where the QNX OS brings real-time performance, safety and security.”
“The OS is pre-certified to meet major functional safety and cybersecurity standards across industries, allowing companies to focus on developing applications without having to build compliance from scratch.
This gives organisations the confidence that they are adopting technology with security built in from the beginning and certified at the highest level,” he said.
Applications include advanced driver assistance systems, autonomous driving features, industrial robots and surgical equipment, where even a brief delay could have serious consequences.
“In a medical surgical robot, even a 10-millisecond or -microsecond delay could be catastrophic. Reliability is no longer optional. The margin for error is essentially zero.”
Jain said QNX OS currently powers more than 275 million vehicles globally, including systems used by all of the world's top 10 automotive manufacturers and 24 of the top 25 electric vehicle makers.
The platform is also widely deployed in medical devices, industrial automation, rail systems and robotics.
He believes demand for engineers with embedded software expertise will continue to grow as industries become increasingly software-defined.
The shift is also expected to complement Malaysia's ambitions to strengthen its semiconductor ecosystem and expand investments in AI infrastructure and data centres.
"More software is coming into every aspect of our lives. That means greater software complexity, more computing power and more intelligence moving closer to where data is generated, rather than remaining in the cloud."
Jain added that technologies such as 5G will play an increasingly important role in supporting this transition by enabling low-latency communication between cloud platforms and intelligent edge devices.
Meanwhile, BlackBerry field chief information security officer for Asia-Pacific Jonathan Jackson said Malaysia is well positioned to become a regional hub for embedded software and cybersecurity talent.
He noted that BlackBerry established its Asean headquarters in Malaysia and has been working with the government through its Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CCoE) in Cyberjaya over the past three years.
According to Jackson, the centre has trained nearly 10,000 people over the past two years in areas ranging from cyber awareness to digital forensics, malware analysis and chief information security officer (CISO)-level programmes.
"Malaysia is on a journey towards Industry 5.0. You're going to need trained, capable engineers who are locally grown to drive the next generation of capability.
"This partnership is the beginning of building that talent pipeline."
Once known for its smartphones, BlackBerry stopped making hardware in 2017 to focus on software, cybersecurity and embedded operating systems after acquiring QNX Software Systems in 2010 for around US$200mil.
Jackson said the company's transformation is complete and it is now entering its next phase of growth.
“BlackBerry is now firmly a software and services and embedded operating system company,” he said.
"We're moving from being a transformation company to a growth company. We're very confident in our ability to execute, particularly in this region."
BlackBerry returned to the black in the financial year ended Feb 28, 2026 (FY26), posting a net income of US$53.2mil compared with a net loss of US$79mil a year earlier.
The momentum continued into the first quarter ended May 31, 2026 (1Q27), with net income more than quadrupling to US$8.5mil from US$1.9mil in 1Q26.
