Canadian telecom company BlackBerry has announced the launch of its new software innovation center. The company has pledged $100 million for the facility. The center is located in Ottawa and will focus on developing software for self-driving and connected vehicles.

The center was inaugurated by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and BlackBerry CEO John Chen. The BlackBerry QNX Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Center is the crux of BlackBerry's new strategy to gain a foothold in the upcoming autonomous vehicles segment.

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The self-driving vehicles sector is rife with competition as major technology and automaker companies are vying to design viable products. The major players in the industry are Google, Uber, General Motors, and Apple, among others.

"In the coming hyper-connected world, cars will soon carry one of the highest concentrations of Internet of Things edge nodes and sensors, generating a vast amount of valuable and actionable data," Blackberry said in a statement. The company aims to develop "key technologies" which will help to power connected vehicles.

BlackBerry said that it expects half of all cars to be cloud connected by 2020. The company also intends to build a product portfolio in the autonomous vehicle industry. QNX currently has about 400 employees. With the new initiative, it plans to add up to 650 new jobs. The company will also be collaborating with public and private sector companies.

QNX may face challenges from Apple's self-driving software team, which is also located in Ottawa. However, QNX has been engaged in software development for auto companies for a long time. It is highly likely that the company will be able to leverage its position in the market.

Earlier this year, the company was granted permission by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario to test autonomous cars in Ontario. The new center will work on conducting this pilot project. The center will also collaborate with Renesas, PolySync, and the University of Waterloo to develop an autonomous concept vehicle.