• Nokia has commissioned some surveys and published some reports on the networking requirements for the AI era in Europe and the US
• Naturally, the reports conclude that networks need a lot more investment, and regulations need to be revamped, if the full potential economic benefits of AI are to be realised
• The outcomes might be massively self-serving but that doesn’t mean they’re not relevant or important

It’s not often that the reading of a telecom industry press release results in a hearty chuckle – they mostly elicit groans of disappointment or tears of despair – but that’s what happened today when Nokia shared its latest missive, Demands of AI supercycle spur cross-industry consensus to evolve US and European network infrastructure - new study. 

The ‘AI supercycle’ is a term likely to be used a great deal by Nokia in the next year and beyond as it is the trend fuelling the company’s new strategy, as revealed by CEO Justin Hotard in November – see Nokia revamps for the AI era, axes mobile chief Tommi Uitto.

Nokia’s ‘study’ comes in the form of two reports based on the results of surveys commissioned by the technology vendor and conducted by New York-based consultancy Gemic, which sourced feedback from senior executives from the telco, datacentre operator and major enterprise sectors – 1,000 senior executives in the US, and 1,024 in Europe. 

The chuckle came when I read the title of one of the reports – ‘AI is too big for the European Internet’. I guess it just appealed to my sense of humour… 

Nokia has extrapolated from the survey results that Europe’s data transport infrastructure just isn’t up to the demands of AI workloads. Here’s Nokia’s key takeaway from its European research. “In Europe, 86% of enterprise respondents said current networks are not yet equipped to handle widespread AI adoption. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they already have AI in live use, and more than half have already experienced challenges, such as downtime, latency and throughput constraints associated with increasing data demands. To address these challenges, respondents emphasised the need for consistent regulatory simplification and alignment across markets, timely spectrum availability, adjustments in competition policy to enable market consolidation, and industry-wide investment in energy-efficient, AI-ready networks.” 

We’ll come back to the investment angle in a moment…

For the other report, Nokia took, in my view, a MAGA approach to the title (no chuckling this time) – ‘Build first, lead forever’. (That’s the given title on the actual report document, though the press release says it carries the somewhat baffling name ‘Infrastructure First Is the New America First’). 

The key takeaway here is: “While the US continues to lead global AI deployment and mass-market adoption, 88% of US respondents expressed concern that the expansion of network infrastructure may not keep pace with AI investment. Respondents identified bi-directional data flow optimisation, expanded fibre capacity, real-time training feedback, and low-latency edge infrastructure as essential priorities and building blocks for modernising network architecture and powering the next phase of AI growth.”

Could networks be the bottlenecks that hold back economic potential? Pallavi Mahajan, Nokia’s chief technology and AI officer, reckons so.

“The first wave of the AI supercycle has already reshaped industries and accelerated innovation,” she stated in the press release. “This research shows a clear understanding across the ecosystem that future waves will demand more advanced, AI-native networks and substantial investment to strengthen network requirements. Connectivity, capacity and low-latency performance are becoming ever more essential ingredients for transforming how devices interact, industries operate, and people live and experience technology as AI moves forward,” added Mahajan.

These takeaways don’t even scratch the surface of the findings and insights in the reports, which are interesting documents, for sure. 

But, of course, the reports are very self-serving (as you’d expect). 

Nokia is pinning its future growth opportunities on delivering the technology used to connect the world’s AI infrastructure, whether that be datacentre-to-datacentre connectivity, the networks inside datacentres, and the infrastructure that connects enterprises and other end users to datacentres. 

The key takeaway from the reports is that greater investment, and indeed reformed regulations that will spur ever greater investments, are needed if Europe and the US are to meet the economic and sovereign needs of their respective ecosystems. 

Nokia isn’t alone in pushing this line: One of its main optical network infrastructure sector rivals, Ciena, was behind a separate report published earlier this year that, ultimately, pointed to the need for greater investment in data network infrastructure by telcos – see Are telco data transport networks ready for AI?

But just because the surveys and resulting reports are self-serving doesn’t mean they’re not worthy or, indeed, that the conclusions and takeaways aren’t relevant and highlighting some key challenges for network and datacentre operators, major enterprises and lawmakers. 

I’d argue that these reports are more important to decision-makers in the US and Europe than many other infrastructure-focused documents, though of course they need to be considered in a much broader context and certainly in parallel with critical infrastructure (particularly power) and security strategies. 

In the meantime, these reports are worth digesting (even with their obvious biases) ahead of 2026, which is shaping up to be another year dominated by AI-related considerations. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV