BlackBerry Quietly Became a Robotics Software Company. Here Is How.
The phone maker turned automotive software firm says its QNX software is now one of its fastest-growing business lines, and robots are driving that growth.
Key points
- BlackBerry's QNX software, which handles safety-critical functions in cars, now runs inside industrial robots and medical devices.
- QNX is already embedded in 275 million vehicles worldwide, giving BlackBerry a long track record in safety-critical environments.
- BlackBerry's total order backlog for QNX stood at $950 million as of the CEO's comments to CNBC, with robotics making up a portion.
- BlackBerry stock has doubled in price so far this year, driven by improving margins and new growth bets on robotics and autonomous vehicles.
- In April 2025, BlackBerry expanded a partnership with Nvidia to deploy QNX alongside Nvidia's systems in robotics, medical, and industrial settings.
Most people remember BlackBerry for the smartphone with the little physical keyboard. That chapter closed years ago. What the company does now is less flashy but arguably more consequential: it sells software that tells machines what to do when a mistake could hurt someone.
What does BlackBerry actually make today?
Its main product is QNX, an operating system, the core software layer that controls how a device runs, built for environments where reliability is not optional. Think the brakes in your car, or the software managing a semi-autonomous driving system. BlackBerry says QNX runs inside 275 million vehicles today.
Now the company is taking that same software into warehouses, hospitals and factories. CEO John Giamatteo told CNBC's The Tech Download podcast that robotics has become one of the "fastest-growing businesses inside the QNX portfolio." He is not talking about humanoid robots. The focus is on warehouse forklifts, surgical equipment and industrial automation: machines that move goods, assist surgeries or run production lines.
Why does this matter for ordinary people?
It matters because the software managing a robotic forklift in a warehouse, or an automated tool in an operating theatre, needs to be trustworthy. A bug in that code is not an annoyance; it is a safety risk. That is precisely the gap BlackBerry is trying to fill, using a reputation earned over more than a decade in automotive.
The company's total backlog of QNX orders sits at $950 million. Giamatteo confirmed that robotics accounts for part of that figure but declined to break out the exact amount. So the robotics bet is real, but its specific size is still unclear. Worth keeping that in mind before drawing big conclusions.
In April 2025, BlackBerry announced an expanded deal with Nvidia, the chipmaker whose processors power most AI systems, to combine QNX with Nvidia's hardware platforms across robotics, medical technology and industrial use. Newer robots increasingly pair specialised chips with AI models, software trained on data that can make decisions in real time. BlackBerry's pitch is that QNX provides the safety layer underneath all of that.
What about BlackBerry's stock doubling?
BlackBerry shares have doubled year-to-date, which sounds exciting. But one data point worth filing away: a doubling stock price often reflects investors pricing in future growth that has not arrived yet. The $950 million backlog is a concrete number. The robotics slice of it is not public. Survivorship bias works in markets too: the companies that successfully pivoted get written up; the ones that did not are forgotten.
The honest takeaway is this. If you work in a warehouse, a hospital or a factory that is adding automated machinery, the software running inside those machines is as important as the hardware you can see. Asking a vendor which safety-certified operating system their robot runs on is a reasonable, practical question. It is the kind of thing that used to apply only to cars.
