Businesspeople celebrate Ford's future driverless car centre in Kanata

Business leaders in Ottawa are celebrating the announcement of a new cutting-edge research centre in Kanata that willfocus on new car technology, including autonomous vehicles, and add close to 300 jobs in the capital.

The research and developmentcentre is part of a billion-dollar partnership between Ford Canada and the federal and Ontario governments.

• More than $200Minvested at Ford plant in Windsor, Ont., by federal and provincial governments
• Switching gears, Canada's BlackBerry opens autonomous vehicle hub

Ford announced Thursday it would provide $337.9 million in funding toset up the Ottawa Research and Engineering Centre, which willfocus on infotainment, driver-assist features and autonomous vehicles.

"I'm thrilled to hear this announcement," saidJennaSudds, president of theKanataNorth Business Association.

"I think it speaks miles to the amount of activity and the level of innovation and excellence happening here specifically in autonomous vehicles and connected cars."

Some BlackBerry employees will move to Ford

In a statement issued Thursday, BlackBerry said approximately 400 of theirengineers in Canada and the United States have accepted offers to move from BlackBerry to Ford as part of a partnership between the two companies.

Of the 400 workers,295 will be located in Ottawa, according toaspokeswoman forInfrastructureMinister BobChiarelli.

"These companies often like to be located in proximity to their suppliers, collaborators and competitors," Sudds said.

"We are very fortunate to have incredibly deep telecom roots inKanataNorth and an incredible amount of R&D and activity happening around 5G networks and the next generation of networks that are necessary to enable these connected cars.

"Ford certainly has a strong partnership already in place with QNX,who is a world leader in automotive software in 60 per cent of the cars around the world already."

BlackBerry subsidiary QNXopened its autonomous vehicle innovation centre in Kanatain December 2016.

'It's a really big deal'

Earlier this month, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watsonled a delegation of tech leaders, including QNX'ssenior vice president John Wall,to Queen's Parkto speak with Ontario'spremier andministersin support of high-tech initiativesin Ottawa, particularly autonomous vehicles.

"This is great news," Watson said.

"We're on a real roll, excuse the pun, when it comes to autonomous vehicles and the work that goes with that. And I'm very, very optimistic that we'll see even greater job creation in that field."

Mike Tremblay, president of Invest Ottawa, agreedwith the mayor's outlook.

"It's a really big deal," Tremblay said. "Our place in the country is very clear when you see announcements like today happen. This sets us up for technologies that are related to autonomous vehicles that will allow us to grow and build. So this is one announcement of many that I would foresee in the future. It's very good for Ottawa."