Dive Brief:
- Bosch and Qualcomm Technologies are expanding their strategic partnership on computers for vehicle instrument clusters to include advanced driver assist systems, the companies announced in an April 10 press release.
- The first vehicles equipped with Bosch hardware and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform are expected to be on the road in 2028, per the release, and the companies intend the technology for global and regional models in all vehicle segments.
- “By combining leading-edge compute technology with our system integration expertise — hardware, software, and safety — we enable automakers to meet the rising demand for personalized, safe, and comfortable driving experiences,” said Christoph Hartung, CTO for systems, software and services at Bosch, in a statement.
Dive Insight:
For decades, vehicles were built with dozens of individual modules often from different suppliers and running embedded software for systems such as infotainment, instrument clusters and safety. Bosch, for example, has been a Tier 1 supplier of specialized computing units, processors, ABS hardware and semiconductors to global OEMs for years.
However, as vehicles become more advanced, this approach adds a high level of complexity and costs to vehicle design. As the auto industry shifts toward electrification and software-defined vehicles, automakers are now working on zonal architectures supported by a smaller number of more powerful, centralized processors.
The expanded partnership between the two companies will leverage Bosch’s cost-optimized vehicle computer architecture and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Cockpit platform to support scalable deployments of ADAS technology in vehicles. The hardware fuses multiple vehicle sensor technologies and runs complex algorithms to more advanced vehicle functions, such as automated driving. The platform is part of the company’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis family of products for OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers.
“The growing success of our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies underlines a central value Bosch brings to the industry: We provide the robust, high-performance computing platforms that form the backbone of today’s software-defined vehicle,” said Hartung in a statement.
Qualcomm also offers its Snapdragon Ride Flex platform that consolidates a vehicle’s dashboard functions and safety systems using a single system-on-a-chip that’s scalable and provides more flexibility for OEMs to integrate across different models.
“By expanding our work with Bosch into production-ready ADAS platforms, we’re helping automakers bring advanced driver assistance across vehicle lines more efficiently, with a clear path to centralized compute,” Qualcomm Executive Vice President Nakul Duggal said in a statement.
To date, Bosch has delivered more than 10 million vehicle computers to global OEMs based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Cockpit platforms, per the release.
In addition to its expanded collaboration with Bosch, Qualcomm is working with other major global automakers, including Volkswagen Group, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and OEMs in China.
Last year, Qualcomm and BMW announced a collaboration to integrate the Snapdragon Ride platform into the automaker’s future Neue Klasse electric vehicles. The two companies unveiled a jointly developed automated driving system in September 2025 powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride SoC.
In January, Volkswagen Group signed a letter of intent with Qualcomm for the company to serve as its primary technology provider to deploy high-performance SoCs to power the infotainment systems of the automaker's future vehicles using a zonal SDV architecture, including for Audi models.
Last month, Qualcomm reported $1.1 billion in automotive revenue in Q1 of FY2026, a year-over-year increase of 15%. The company said it has a $45 billion design-win pipeline with major automakers.
