Software becoming the biggest bottleneck to physical AI innovation, finds QNX research

QNX, the BlackBerry-owned embedded OS division, released an OnePoll survey of 1,000 robotics software developers finding 27% cite software architecture and integration as their biggest performance bottleneck versus 16% for hardware, while 91% still run real-time workloads at least partly on general-purpose operating systems. Two-thirds of respondents reported certification-related project delays, rising to 70% in the UK and Germany versus 56% in China.

Why it matters

The number to dwell on is the certification delay gap: 70% of UK and German teams report project slippage from certification versus 56% in China. That is a 14-point speed advantage that compounds across product cycles, and it is showing up in the survey data before it shows up in deployment counts. For anyone modeling time-to-revenue on a humanoid or mobile manipulator, the regulatory cost of operating in Europe is now quantifiable and material.

The other tell is that 91% of developers admit they are running deterministic, safety-critical workloads on general-purpose operating systems (read: Linux), and 86% of that group say they are open to switching. That is a vendor's dream survey, and QNX commissioned it, so discount accordingly. But the underlying tension is real: the robotics stack was built on ROS plus Ubuntu because it was fast to prototype, and nobody wants to be the company that ships a hospital robot certified on a kernel they cannot freeze. Expect a wave of safety-certified RTOS procurement over the next two years, with QNX, Wind River VxWorks, and Green Hills INTEGRITY as the obvious beneficiaries.

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