Red Hat and General Motors collaborate to develop the future of software-defined vehicles

At the Red Hat Summit 2022, open-source software firm Red Hat and automaker General Motors (GM) announced a partnership to help progress software-defined vehicles with cloud connectivity.

The two companies plan to extend an innovation ecosystem around the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System. It provides a functional-safety certified Linux operating system, Foundation, for the ongoing evolution of GM’s Ultifi software platform, GM’s end-to-end vehicle software platform.

Red Hat said this collaboration was a significant moment in the convergence of the transportation and technology industries, with Red Hat’s cloud-native, enterprise-grade open-source operating system driving the development of GM’s software-defined vehicle programs following Ultifi’s initial launch. This collaboration will allow both companies to offer customers more valuable features in a short development time.

Francis Chow, general manager and vice president of In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge at Red Hat, said the by collaborating with General Motors on the Red Hat In-Vehicle Operating System, they intend to begin an era of open source to the automotive world, benefiting ecosystem partners, automakers, and consumers.

In-vehicle software requiresstringent certifications and high levels of cybersecurity protection due to critical safety priorities. These requirements often lengthen the development process in current software systems, making vehicle software updates difficult since each update requires recertification.