Sibros Joins SOAFEE to Shape Future of Vehicle Software

SAN JOSE, CA – January 29, 2026 – In a significant move to accelerate the automotive industry’s transition to the software-defined vehicle (SDV), connected vehicle platform leader Sibros has joined the SOAFEE (Scalable Open Architecture for Embedded Edge) Special Interest Group. The partnership brings a provider of production-proven, full-lifecycle vehicle software management into a consortium that is actively building the foundational standards for the next generation of cars, trucks, and mobility platforms.

This collaboration underscores a critical industry trend: the urgent need for standardization to manage the ballooning complexity of vehicle software. As vehicles transform into powerful computers on wheels, automakers face the monumental task of developing, deploying, and maintaining millions of lines of code. By joining the Arm-founded SOAFEE initiative, Sibros will contribute its real-world experience to help define the open, cloud-native architecture that promises to streamline this process for the entire industry.

A Push for Standardization in a Fragmented Market

The modern vehicle is a complex web of electronics and software, often comprising over 100 million lines of code spread across dozens of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) from various suppliers. This complexity has created immense challenges for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), forcing them to invest heavily in integrating disparate systems and managing software updates, often at the expense of developing unique, customer-facing features.

SOAFEE was established to solve this very problem. Now with over 150 members—including automotive giants like General Motors, Volkswagen’s CARIAD, and Toyota’s Woven by Toyota—the group is creating a standardized framework that decouples software from hardware. Its mission is to apply cloud-native principles, such as containers and microservices, to the automotive edge. This allows software to be developed and tested in the cloud and then deployed seamlessly to a wide range of in-vehicle hardware, a concept known as “shift-left” development.

By standardizing the non-differentiating middleware—the digital plumbing that includes operating systems, hypervisors, and container runtimes—SOAFEE enables OEMs to focus their engineering resources on what truly sets their vehicles apart: the user experience, autonomous driving capabilities, and connected services. The initiative provides an open-source reference implementation, allowing for rapid prototyping on virtual platforms long before physical hardware is available, drastically cutting development time and costs.

Bridging the Gap from Cloud to Pavement

While SOAFEE defines the architectural blueprint, Sibros brings the crucial element of production-proven experience. The company’s Deep Connected Platform is one of the few solutions on the market today that provides full-vehicle over-the-air (OTA) software updates, deep data collection, and remote diagnostics for every electronic component in a vehicle, not just the infotainment system. This includes safety-critical systems like brakes, powertrain controllers, and battery management systems.

Crucially, Sibros’ expertise is not limited to high-end passenger cars. The company has active deployments across the entire mobility spectrum, from resource-constrained two-wheelers and recreational vehicles to complex commercial trucks, buses, and heavy agricultural equipment. This diverse experience provides invaluable, practical insight for the SOAFEE group, ensuring that the standards being developed are robust and flexible enough to serve the full range of mobility applications, not just the premium automotive segment.

“Our mission at Sibros has always been to democratize SDV technology, enabling OEMs to focus on building mobility products that delight customers rather than wrestling with connectivity infrastructure,” said Hemant Sikaria, CEO of Sibros. “SOAFEE shares this commitment to lowering barriers and accelerating innovation through open collaboration. We look forward to contributing to standards that make software-defined vehicles accessible to the entire mobility ecosystem.”

The Strategic Stakes in a $150 Billion Market

The push for standardization is fueled by enormous market potential. The global software-defined vehicle market is projected to skyrocket from approximately $34 billion in 2024 to nearly $150 billion by 2029. This explosive growth reflects a fundamental industry pivot from one-time hardware sales to a model of continuous improvement and recurring revenue through software-enabled features and subscriptions.

For Sibros, joining SOAFEE is a significant strategic move that enhances its competitive position. By actively contributing to the development of industry standards, the company can ensure its Deep Connected Platform remains aligned with the future of vehicle architecture, solidifying its role as a key enabler for OEMs navigating the SDV transition. This involvement provides a seat at the table with key partners and customers, fostering deeper integration and solidifying its credibility as a forward-looking technology leader.

The presence of major automakers within the SOAFEE consortium signals a powerful industry consensus. The era of proprietary, closed-off software stacks is giving way to a collaborative, open-ecosystem approach. This collaboration is seen as the only viable path to manage the escalating costs and complexity of software development while accelerating the pace of innovation.

Overcoming Formidable Technical Hurdles

Translating cloud-native principles to the automotive world is not without its technical challenges. Vehicle software operates under stringent constraints that are foreign to typical cloud environments. This includes managing “mixed-criticality” workloads, where a non-critical infotainment application must run securely isolated on the same processor as a safety-critical braking function. Furthermore, many vehicle systems demand hard real-time performance, where a delay of mere milliseconds can have catastrophic consequences.

SOAFEE’s architecture addresses these challenges by incorporating technologies like hypervisors, which create secure virtual partitions on a single chip to isolate different software functions. It also promotes the use of automotive-enhanced container technologies that can manage real-time tasks while meeting the rigorous demands of functional safety standards like ISO 26262.

Here, Sibros’ experience in deploying robust OTA update and data management solutions in live production environments becomes vital. The company has already solved many of the practical challenges related to ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of software updates in a moving vehicle. This practical knowledge is essential for grounding SOAFEE’s architectural theories in the reality of what works on the road. As vehicles evolve into rolling data centers, the collaboration between platform experts like Sibros and standards bodies like SOAFEE is becoming not just strategic, but essential for navigating the complex road to a truly software-defined future.