Nvidia lights a fire under AI-RAN partner Nokia with $1bn investment

• Nvidia and Nokia have strengthened their relationship 
• They are both AI-RAN advocates
• Nokia is integrating Nvidia tech into its RAN portfolio for AI-native 5G and 6G deployments
• Nvidia is taking a 2.9% stake in Nokia with a $1bn equity investment
• The relationship is arguably more important for Nokia’s optical and routing units than it is for its mobile network infrastructure division

Nvidia is buying a 2.9% equity stake in Nokia for $1bn as part of a broader strategic partnership agreement that will see the European network infrastructure vendor add Nvidia’s AI-RAN technology to its mobile network portfolio, “enabling communication service providers to launch AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G networks on Nvidia platforms,” the partners noted in this announcement. 

That the companies are advancing their technology collaboration will come as no surprise to anyone: That Nvidia is becoming a minor but significant shareholder in Nokia is more surprising (more on that later). 

First, the tech angle.

The partners aim to enable network operators “to launch AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G networks on Nvidia platforms”, including the Nvidia Aerial RAN Computer Pro (Arc-Pro), which the AI technology giant describes as “a 6G-ready telecommunications computing platform… that combines connectivity, computing and sensing capabilities, enabling telcos to move from 5G-Advanced to 6G through software upgrades.” It is an evolution of the AI-RAN open compute platform that Nvidia unveiled just more than a year ago – see Nvidia throws an AI-RAN curveball.

Dell Technologies is the named server partner for this particular development. An Arc-Pro reference design is already available for “manufacturers and network equipment providers to build commercial-off-the-shelf-based or proprietary AI-RAN products, supporting both new buildouts and expansions to existing base stations.” 

Nokia, meanwhile, will “accelerate the availability of its 5G and 6G RAN software on the Nvidia CUDA platform,” which is the tech vendor’s AI workload operating system software stack, “and expand its RAN portfolio by embedding Nvidia ARC-Pro at the heart of the new AI-RAN solution. This partnership will enable Nokia’s mobile network customers to transition seamlessly from today’s RAN networks to future AI-RAN networks,” due to the flexibility of Nokia’s anyRAN architecture that enables the introduction of new baseband cards with existing systems, the partners noted. 

The partners’ announcement lays out the details of the technology and radio access network (RAN) collaboration as well as repeating the AI-RAN Alliance members’ stock lines about how such an architecture will “enable massive improvements in performance and efficiency” and “support future AI-native devices, such as drones or augmented- and virtual-reality glasses, while being ready for 6G applications such as integrated sensing and communications.” 

Nvidia and Nokia aren’t doing this in isolation as increasingly influential network operator T-Mobile US is to start testing the resulting joint AI-RAN solution next year, putting the technology through its paces as part of its 6G R&D efforts. 

That these three companies are collaborating on AI-RAN tests and trials is neither new or surprising: All three are members of the AI-RAN Alliance industry body that was formed in February 2024 and have already been working together at the AI-RAN Innovation Centre based at T-Mobile US’s headquarters campus in Bellevue, Washington, that was announced in September 2024. In addition, Nokia landed a strategic 5G RAN deal with T-Mobile US earlier this year that referenced ongoing AI-RAN developments and, just a few months earlier at MWC25, the telco’s then president of technology, Ulf Ewaldsson, noted at Nokia’s annual press and analyst conference that the operator is “excited that the RAN edge could be used for AI” and that it’s “super excited” about the potential of the AI-RAN Alliance. (Ewaldsson has since retired, with John Saw taking on the president of technology role at T-Mobile US.)

Here’s what Saw, who is also the telco’s CTO, had to say about the latest plans. “Our collaboration with industry leaders Nokia and Nvidia marks an important step toward shaping the future of connectivity as we develop the innovations that will power the 6G era. Building on the foundation established by the AI-RAN Innovation Center in 2024, this strategic initiative reinforces T-Mobile’s leadership in driving the US wireless industry forward. Beginning in 2026, T-Mobile will conduct field evaluations and testing of advanced AI-RAN technologies to ensure they meet the evolving needs of our customers as we move toward 6G.”

The involvement of T-Mobile US also enables Nvidia and Nokia to push a telco infrastructure sovereignty story that will appeal to lawmakers all the way to The White House. “AI-RAN will revolutionize telecommunications – a generational platform shift that empowers the United States to regain global leadership in this vital infrastructure technology,” noted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (without specifically mentioning China as the country from which the US would be regaining any such leadership). “Together with Nokia and America’s telecom ecosystem, we’re igniting this revolution, equipping operators to build intelligent, adaptive networks that will define the next generation of global connectivity,” added Huang.  

Justin Hotard, president and CEO of Nokia, hammered home that message. “The next leap in telecom isn’t just from 5G to 6G – it’s a fundamental redesign of the network to deliver AI-powered connectivity, capable of processing intelligence from the datacentre all the way to the edge. Our partnership with Nvidia, and their investment in Nokia, will accelerate AI-RAN innovation to put an AI datacentre into everyone’s pocket,” he gushed. “We’re proud to drive this industry transformation with Nvidia, Dell Technologies, and T-Mobile US – our first AI-RAN deployments in T-Mobile’s network will ensure America leads in the advanced connectivity that AI needs.”

It’s also worth noting that the partners are also looking at “the use of Nokia’s optical technologies and capabilities as part of future Nvidia AI infrastructure architecture,” which is important to the Finnish vendor as its Network Infrastructure division (which includes optical and IP routing) now generates greater sales and higher margins than the Mobile Networks division. (More on this partnership angle below). 

Michael Dell, chairman and CEO at Dell Technologies, highlighted the potential of multipurpose network edge assets. “The telecommunications industry owns the most valuable real estate for AI – the edge, where data is created. This AI-RAN collaboration with Nokia and Nvidia makes that potential real. We’ve built some of the world’s largest AI clusters with 100,000+ GPUs. Now we’re applying that expertise to distribute intelligence across millions of edge nodes. The operators who modernise their infrastructure today won’t just carry AI traffic – they’ll be the distributed AI grid factories that process it at the source, where latency matters and data sovereignty is critical.”

Stake and chips 

What is new and quite surprising is the equity stake being taken by Nvidia. Nokia is issuing nearly 166.4 million new shares at $6.01 each to Nvidia that, once the new shares are issued, will give the AI chip and software giant a 2.9% stake in Nokia.  

Nokia says it will use the proceeds “to accelerate its strategic plans to advance trusted connectivity for the AI supercycle and other general corporate purposes. Nokia intends to accelerate development of Nokia’s 5G & 6G RAN software to run on Nvidia’s architecture and will make investments to drive Nokia’s strategic goal of increasing its presence in the AI & Cloud market with datacentre aligned networking solutions within its Network Infrastructure business. Nokia and Nvidia have agreed to collaborate on AI networking solutions and explore opportunities to incorporate Nokia’s datacentre switching and optical technologies in Nvidia’s future AI infrastructure architecture.” 

News of the investment lit a fire under Nokia’s stock on Tuesday, with the vendor’s share price on the NYSE soaring by almost 23% to end Tuesday at $7.77, giving it a market capitalisation of $43.2bn. On the Helsinki exchange Nokia’s share price gained nearly 21% to €6.59, but in early trading on Wednesday it slipped slightly back to €6.38, but that is still its highest value since early 2016.  

While the stake is small, it signals Nvidia’s support for Nokia’s plans and, of course, puts Nokia in prime position for other AI-RAN tests and trials with any operator that wants to do business  and/or partner with Nvidia (which is all of the major telcos, essentially), as well as positioning Nokia very neatly to play a role in Nvidia-influenced AI factory and other datacentre builds, which is a much bigger opportunity: The entire RAN market is set to be worth between $30bn and $40bn per year for the foreseeable future, with only some of that action set to go the way of AI-RAN architecture designs, while the optical and routing/switching infrastructure business opportunities in datacentres has a much greater “total addressable market” value. 

While it’s important to note that there are no guarantees of any revenue-generating business as a result of this partnership, it greatly enhances Nokia’s business opportunities because Nvidia’s influence in the next-generation digital infrastructure sector is undeniably growing and the close relationship can only provide an upside.  

But this isn’t an exclusive relationship and the AI-RAN Alliance founding members include not only Samsung, a growing player in the RAN sector, but more notably Ericsson, which is also working with T-Mobile US on its next-gen mobile network infrastructure plans at the AI-RAN Innovation Centre. 

Might Nvidia want to broker a similar relationship with the Swedish vendor? We’ve asked Nvidia if it fancies owning a slim slice of Ericsson too but (perhaps understandably) have not heard back. 

And where else might Nvidia turn its investment attention? It has, after all, recently also invested in Intel, holds a position in Arm (another AI-RAN Alliance founding member), has invested in multiple digital infrastructure startups including virtual routing platform specialist Arrcus and taken stakes in AI infrastructure companies such as CoreWeave.

If you ‘follow the money’ in telecom, you’ll want to be following Nvidia’s digital infrastructure vendor investment strategy closely. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV