BlackBerry buys AI cybersecurity firm Cylance for $1.4bn
BlackBerry has completed its $1.4 billion acquisition of Cylance, a privately-held artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity company based in Irvine, California.
BlackBerry Spark gets a boost
The acquisition was first discussed in November 2018. Cylance’s machine learning and AI technology will be used for BlackBerry’s end-to-end communications portfolio.
Notably, BlackBerry explains that Cylance’s embeddable AI technology will be used for the development of BlackBerry Spark, its communications platform for the internet of things (IoT).
“Today BlackBerry took a giant step forward toward our goal of being the world’s largest and most trusted AI-cybersecurity company,” says John Chen, executive chairman and CEO, BlackBerry.
He adds: “Securing endpoints and the data that flows between them is absolutely critical in today’s hyperconnected world. By adding Cylance’s technology to our arsenal of cybersecurity solutions we will help enterprises intelligently connect, protect and build secure endpoints that users can trust.”
There was no mention of any job cuts, but the company did note that as the president of BlackBerry Cylance, Stuart McClure will “continue to apply his visionary math-based approach to threat detection, prevention, and response, as well as lead the business’ large team of highly-skilled engineers and data scientists”.
BlackBerry works in a variety of sectors – such as education, government and healthcare – but in terms of fintech it operates in banking and insurance.
