Qt Group joins software-defined vehicle landscape on AWS

In doing so, Qt is widening access to its design and development tools used by automotive brands like General Motors, Mercedes Benz, and Hyundai.

Qt already provides end-to-end tooling for automotive HMI design, development, testing, and deployment that build upon the same codebase. This allows designers, technical artists, developers, and test engineers to essentially speak the same language. Leveraging the power of AWS, developers can access a fully virtual digital twin of the whole build. This way, they can complete 90% of their development and testing in the cloud instead of on physical hardware. In the final stage of development this work, which constitutes the remaining 10%, can then be ported back to physical hardware for final testing and validation.

The news follows research from Qt Group showing roughly a third of automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) investing in digital twin technologies to enhance in-vehicle user interface and user experience (UI/UX) as momentum builds for software-defined vehicles.

“This is a big step for us and essentially a new business stream for Qt,” says Juhapekka Niemi, SVP of Product Management at Qt. “Making our solutions available in AWS Marketplace and enabling development on AWS means bringing Qt’s brand and products to millions of users and developers. We’re also excited about what the future holds for bringing the benefits of Qt on AWS to other verticals like medical device design and industrial automation.”

“Adding our tool suite to AWS Marketplace will save OEMs considerable development and testing time, reducing the amount of iterating and prototyping,” says Patrick Dalez, Business Line Director at Qt Group. “Ultimately, this can mitigate supply chain challenges for OEMs. They won’t have to wait anymore for board orders to ship and arrive, which can be significantly delayed if there are supply chain challenges, or if boards fail and more need ordering. Instead, with the power of the cloud, it’s all at their fingertips in one place. When development and testing is complete, you can install everything you’ve built in the cloud on physical hardware for final testing and validation.”

At CES 2024, AWS will demo its latest cloud services and solutions purpose-built for the automotive industry and others. In addition to Qt’s Software-Defined Vehicle on AWS demonstration, Qt Group’s room in West Hall W310 will feature other Qt partners like AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., NXP, Texas Instruments, Renesas, Real-Time Innovations (RTI), and STMicroelectronics.

 “We’re thrilled to once again join our ecosystem partners at CES to showcase the rapid evolution of automotive technology,” says Zubair Ahmad, Automotive Product Manager at AMD. “Our close working relationship with Qt has shown they can deliver scalable, high-quality, and high-performance features that automotive users demand for a more seamless in-vehicle experience in driving, entertainment, and productivity. “

Qt Group’s tools are ideal for designing, developing, and testing products as it promotes closer alignment between developers and designers by allowing them to work simultaneously and within the same framework. Applying Qt across all vehicles and screens, from heads-up displays, passenger screens, and rear-seat entertainment systems to digital instrument clusters, and more, allows automakers to benefit from the Qt frameworks’ scalability.