Development of VirtIO-compliant in-vehicle software platform completed

YOKOHAMA, Japan , Feb. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Panasonic Automotive Systems Co., Ltd. ⁠(Headquarters: Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan; President: Masashi Nagayasu) has been actively promoting the global adoption and industry-wide standardization of VirtIO—an open-source device virtualization technology advanced by industry groups such as AGL*¹, Android™, OASIS*², and SOAFEE*³—for automotive applications. Today, our efforts have gained industry-wide endorsement from Honda Motor Co., Ltd., Mazda Motor Corporation, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., Toyota Motor Corporation, as well as related companies in the IT and other sectors. In addition, we have completed the development of a VirtIO-compliant in-vehicle software platform for CDC (Cockpit Domain Controller). Moving forward, we will continue to develop and promote VirtIO-compliant automotive software to contribute to innovation in vehicle development.

The automotive industry is entering the era of Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), where much of product value and innovation is realized through software. The ability to accelerate software evolution has become a key factor in competitiveness. It is essential to standardize software across different vehicle models and generations and ensure its continuous development. To achieve this, an open-source device virtualization technology that enables common software to run seamlessly on different hardware platforms is required.

VirtIO is a key technology for enabling device virtualization. By adopting VirtIO, companies can create virtual hardware environments on computing platforms such as cloud servers. This approach allows software development and evolution to begin long before physical vehicle hardware becomes available, significantly accelerating development speed and time to market.

Since 2018, we have taken the lead globally in developing VirtIO for automotive applications and promoting its industry-wide standardization, engaging the automotive industry, related IT sectors, and the semiconductor industry. Establishing VirtIO as an industry standard will enable the creation of an open and transparent ecosystem in which manufacturers can freely choose the optimal hardware technologies. Our efforts to standardize VirtIO, as well as our broader standardization initiatives, have gained global endorsement from major automakers and related companies. We have completed the development of a VirtIO-compliant in-vehicle software platform and will continue to advance it, driving automotive innovation well suited to the SDV era.

• Masashige Mizuyama, Representative Director, Executive Vice President, and Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

"To drive innovation in automotive development in the SDV era, it is essential for companies to adopt VirtIO and develop their in-vehicle software assets in compliance with VirtIO. In addition to software platforms, we have developed vSkipGen—a VirtIO-compliant virtual hardware solution—which is used in our own SDV development and is also available to external partners. We encourage automakers, as well as companies involved in the development of in-vehicle software and components, to endorse this initiative and ensure that their products comply with VirtIO standards, thereby contributing to the global growth of the ecosystem."

In the SDV era, we aim to accelerate the evolution of software—whose technological asset value continues to grow—while expanding the scope of VirtIO's application and further developing the ecosystem. By leveraging open-source technologies to drive standardization and broader adoption, we view this as a highly meaningful initiative that signals the future direction of technological innovation not only in the automotive industry, but across the broader manufacturing sector, where software-defined paradigms are rapidly gaining momentum.

Endorsement Comments from Companies Supporting VirtIO Standardization Efforts:
<Comments from Automakers>

• Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

"Honda envisions that the realization of SDV will fundamentally transform and enhance vehicle value. Achieving this vision requires scaling our development capabilities, integrating complex systems, and accelerating development cycles—objectives that present significant technical challenges. Specifically, it is critical to treat software as a continuous asset, necessitating a hardware-agnostic architecture that remains resilient to underlying hardware evolution. We recognize VirtIO as a key technology for hardware virtualization, offering the potential to overcome these challenges and accelerate SDV development. Furthermore, we believe that the adoption of VirtIO will go beyond Honda's own advancements to fortify the entire industry's technological foundation, driving sustainable value creation across the mobility ecosystem." – Mahito Shikama, Vice President, Head of SDV Business Development Unit, Automobile Operations, Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

• Mazda Motor Corporation

"Mazda has set forth its 2030 VISION: "To be a car-loving company that creates moving experiences through the joy of driving." In pursuit of this vision, Mazda is advancing a transformation of development technologies and processes to address increasing complexity through the evolution of model-based development and the use of AI. To realize enhanced human-centered experiential value by leveraging the evolution of software, a common foundation is indispensable—one that enables flexible selection of optimal hardware configurations while supporting the continuous development of software responsible for vehicle functions and services. Mazda views VirtIO as a common interface that helps maintain architectural consistency in line with the evolution of future system configurations. Recognizing its potential early on, Mazda has been actively evaluating and promoting the adoption of VirtIO as an effective technology to underpin this common foundation. Mazda expects VirtIO to further mature as a technology that contributes to value creation and remains committed to contributing to its continued advancement." – Michihiro Imada, Executive Officer, Mazda Motor Corporation

• Mitsubishi Motors Corporation

"Mitsubishi Motors Corporation is accelerating initiatives to continuously enhance vehicle value through the operation of connected platforms and over-the-air (OTA) updates, with the aim of delivering sustained customer value. In software development, the standardization of device virtualization using VirtIO enables a hardware independent development environment, ensures a high degree of correlation and reproducibility between cloud-based environments and actual vehicle hardware, and promotes the development of multi-vender environments and expanded ecosystem interoperability through industry wide adoption of VirtIO. We endorse this initiative and are committed to further advancing and expanding mobility experiences in the SDV era." – Tohru Ishiguro, Vice President, Division General Manager Vehicle Engineering Development Division2, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation

• Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

"Nissan views the standardization of VirtIO as one of the key foundations for realizing the innovative mobility experiences required in the SDV era. By resolving performance and real-time challenges in ECU virtualization through VirtIO, and implementing a standardized virtualization interface on actual ECUs, we enable high-precision verification of behavior closely resembling real-vehicle onboard systems using common binaries—even in cloud-native off-board development and verification environments. We believe this advancement in development and verification processes will accelerate the evolution of customer value, and we will support the adoption and development of VirtIO standardization." – Tetsuo Sasaki, Fellow, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

<Comments from Related Companies>

• Amazon Web Services Japan G.K.

"Panasonic Automotive Systems Co., Ltd.'s VirtIO (Open Source Software) based SDV development environment, vSkipGen, has been put into practical use on AWS Graviton provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). And it has been proven that Vehicle OSes and Apps developed in this AWS cloud environment run with environmental parity on physical ECUs. Using VirtIO, automotive software development can be started before preparing physical ECUs, and complete functional verification in AWS cloud. Promoting VirtIO as an industry standard will contribute to improving the value and quality of automotive software from plan, development through OTA updates, while combining it with agentic AI on the AWS cloud will create new value, such as further improving development efficiency and providing a rich driver experiences by dialog with multiple agents. AWS will lead this innovation in automotive industries." – Yasuhiro Kose, Executive Officer, Head of Technical Division, Amazon Web Services Japan G.K.

• AMD

"The shift to Software-Defined Vehicles demands open standards that decouple software innovation from hardware lifecycles. Panasonic Automotive Systems' commitment to VirtIO standardization is a meaningful step toward building a transparent, scalable ecosystem for the industry. At AMD, we believe open virtualization frameworks, combined with high-performance heterogeneous compute, are foundational to accelerating time-to-market while preserving long-term flexibility for automakers worldwide." – Simon George, Director, Embedded Systems (Automotive and Robotics) & Software Ecosystem, AMD

• Arm

"The next wave of physical AI innovation will be defined by AI and software running reliably under real-world constraints, creating a need for open, standards-based platforms that enable reliability, scalability, and long-term innovation. VirtIO is an important building block in advancing AI-defined vehicles, and through ecosystem collaboration we are helping to advance SOAFEE-aligned approaches that scale trusted, efficient automotive software platforms worldwide." – Suraj Gajendra, Vice President of Products and Solutions, Physical AI Business Unit, Arm

• Automotive Grade Linux

"Panasonic Automotive Systems (PAS) has been a cornerstone of the Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) community since our inception. As a valued AGL board member and leader of the SDV Expert Group, PAS is playing a critical role in defining the future of the software-defined vehicle. Their significant technical contributions, most notably their extensive work on VirtIO, have become an integral part of the AGL SoDeV platform, providing the essential device and hardware abstraction required for modern, scalable architectures. We deeply value their continued collaboration and leadership as we work together to accelerate automotive innovation." – Dan Cauchy, Executive Director, Automotive Grade Linux

• Eclipse Foundation

"Open source plays a critical role in software-defined vehicles by enabling shared building blocks and common interfaces that decouple software from hardware and improve portability across platforms. Within the Eclipse SDV ecosystem, initiatives such as Eclipse S-CORE bring stakeholders together to develop reusable, interoperable components in the open. Industry efforts advancing open interfaces and virtualization technologies are complementary to this work, and we welcome broad, constructive engagement across OEMs, suppliers, silicon providers, and the global open-source community." – Ansgar Lindwedel, Director, SDV Ecosystem Development, Eclipse Foundation

• Google

"VirtIO is a pivotal foundational technology for achieving virtualization and hardware independence in automotive software development. At Google, we have officially adopted VirtIO as the standard I/O interface for many years, both in Android Automotive OS and our cloud-native development environments. It supports extensions for a wide range of devices and ensures stable operation and high versatility across multiple hypervisors and hardware configurations. We appreciate Panasonic Automotive's continuous contributions to VirtIO standardization and Android development. Google remains committed to working with our partners to strengthen VirtIO and expand the open ecosystem, striving to realize a sustainable platform fit for the SDV era." – Patrick Brady, VP, Engineering, Android Automotive, Google

• MediaTek Inc.

"VirtIO plays a strategic role in enabling software-defined vehicles by addressing the growing complexity of next-generation automotive architectures. To reduce extensive software rework in migration challenges and keep scalability, MediaTek will work closely with partners and customers to integrate VirtIO into our Dimensity Auto platforms, accelerating time-to-market and enabling the ongoing transition toward software-defined vehicles." – Dr. Mike Chang, Corporate Vice President, General Manager of Automotive Platform Business, MediaTek Inc.

• Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

"Virtualization is a foundational pillar of the software defined vehicle, playing an increasingly important role in decoupling the inherent complexity of the automotive domain, where diverse platforms and fragmented architectures demand scalable solutions. By enabling portability across devices and cloud environments, it accelerates development, testing, and rapid prototyping. Qualcomm Technologies remains committed to advancing VirtIO as it evolves to meet growing automotive requirements." – Laxmi Rayapudi, VP & GM, Software, Auto & IE-IOT, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

• Renesas Electronics Corporation

"As a leading provider of automotive semiconductor solutions, Renesas is strengthening hardware virtualization in our SoCs and actively driving software-based virtualization technologies. As part of these efforts, we are expanding VirtIO capabilities in our SoC software. We fully support Panasonic Automotive's initiative to promote the standardization of VirtIO across the industry." – Aish Dubey, Vice President, High Performance Computing SoC Business Division, Renesas Electronics Corporation

• Telechips Inc.

"In the rapidly changing automotive market, the scale of software development is becoming even more of a burden. VirtIO represents an important step toward improving software consistency between virtual and real environments, enabling more accurate and efficient development. We believe that VirtIO will become more important technology in the SDV era and Telechips is committed to supporting VirtIO. It's pleased to collaborate with Panasonic Automotive Systems in advancing an open and scalable automotive software ecosystem." – Moonsoo Kim, Head of System Semiconductor Center, R&D division, Telechips Inc.

• Xen Project

"The Xen Project believes that VirtIO is a key enabling technology for Software Defined Vehicles. As SDV development accelerates, automotive platforms must manage increasing complexity while preserving performance, portability, and long-term software value. The Xen community has been working for several years to advance VirtIO for automotive use cases, delivering not only efficient and standardized VirtIO support, but also strengthening its safety and security properties. This work pushes the boundaries of where VirtIO can be applied, from freedom-from-interference, safety-certified systems to heterogeneous computing platforms operating across PCIe. The Xen Project welcomes Panasonic Automotive Systems' initiative and values the opportunity to collaborate in accelerating VirtIO adoption, standardization, and industry-wide impact." – Cody Zuschlag, Community Manager, Xen Project

Notes:
*1:Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) is a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project that unites automakers, suppliers, and technology companies to create a single, shared software stack for infotainment, instrument clusters, telematics, and other in-vehicle systems.
*2:Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) is an international non-profit organization dedicated to developing standards for information technology.
*3:Scalable Open Architecture For Embedded Edge (SOAFEE) is an initiative that brings together the automotive industry and software industry to make AI-enabled Software Defined Vehicles a reality.

Google and Android are trademarks of Google LLC.

About Panasonic Automotive Systems Co., Ltd.
Headquartered in Japan, Panasonic Automotive Systems Co., Ltd., (PAS) is a global company with subsidiaries in eight other countries and, as a Tier 1 company, it provides advanced proprietary technologies such as infotainment systems to automakers in Japan and overseas, helping to create comfortable, safe, and secure automobiles. PAS is committed to meeting the expectations of its customers around the world with technologies that stand by people in pursuit of its corporate vision of becoming the "Joy in Motion" design company.
We are changing our company name and brand to Mobitera Inc., effective April 1, 2027.
To learn more about our company, please visit https://automotive.panasonic.com/en

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SOURCE Panasonic Corporation of North America