BlackBerry Limited acquires artificial intelligence firm Cylance

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- BlackBerry Limited announced Friday it's acquired Cylance, an artificial intelligence and cybersecurity firm that will advance the company's foray into what it calls the Internet of Things.

Blackberry said Cylance's expertise will be used to develop the next-generation BlackBerry Spark, a secure chip-to-chip communications platform that's being developed for connected cars.

Terms of the sale were not specified, but the deal is expected to close by February, which is the end of BlackBerry's fiscal year.

The Internet of Things, sometimes called the Enterprise of Things by BlackBerry, involves connecting everyday devices to each other so they communicate and can be operated by human users or artificial intelligence.

"We believe adding Cylance's capabilities to our trusted advantages in privacy, secure mobility and embedded systems will make BlackBerry Spark indispensable to realizing the Enterprise of Things," Blackberry CEO John Chen said in a statement.

Security was cited by Blackberry as the top barrier to success for the Internet of Things, followed by privacy, risks and liabilities. Cylance has developed technology that can predict and prevent known and unknown threats with lightweight hardware that resides on the endpoint and can operate both online and off.

Cylance was founded in 2012 and has 3,500 active customers.

"Our highly skilled cybersecurity workforce and market leadership in next-generation endpoint solutions will be a perfect fit within BlackBerry where our customers, teams and technologies will gain immediate benefits from BlackBerry's global reach," said Cylance CEO Stuart McClure.