Nvidia Puts US$1bn on Nokia for 6G AI-RAN

The telecommunications industry is undergoing a foundational shift.

Cloud-native networks are replacing traditional, hardware-centric functions. The shift to programmable, software-defined and AI-enabled telecom networks is now accelerating.

Nvidia and Nokia have announced a partnership in which Nvidia will invest US$1bn in Nokia at a subscription price of US$6.01 per share, subject to customary closing conditions.

The partnership adds Nvidia-powered, commercial-grade AI-RAN products to Nokia’s RAN portfolio.

The move enables communication service providers to launch AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G networks on Nvidia platforms.

The partnership marks the beginning of the AI-native wireless era.

It provides the foundation to support AI-powered consumer experiences and enterprise services at the edge.

The collaboration addresses the AI-RAN market. Analyst firm Omdia expects the market to exceed US$200 billion in cumulative sales by 2030. Together, Nvidia and Nokia are laying the strategic infrastructure.

They are opening a new high-growth frontier for telecom providers by delivering distributed edge AI inferencing at scale.

Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of Nvidia, says: “Telecommunications is a critical national infrastructure, the digital nervous system of our economy and security.

“Built on Nvidia CUDA and AI, AI-RAN will revolutionise telecommunications, a generational platform shift that empowers the United States to regain global leadership in the vital infrastructure technology.

"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.”

Nokia embeds Nvidia ARC-Pro and Dell PowerEdge for AI-RAN

Nvidia is introducing the Aerial RAN Computer Pro, or ARC-Pro. It is a 6G-ready computing platform that combines connectivity, computing and sensing. It enables telecommunications companies to move from 5G-Advanced to 6G through software upgrades.

The Nvidia ARC-Pro reference design is available for manufacturers and network equipment providers. They can build commercial-off-the-shelf or proprietary AI-RAN products to support new buildouts and expansions of existing base stations.

Nokia will accelerate the availability of its 5G and 6G RAN software on the Nvidia CUDA platform. Nokia will further expand its RAN portfolio by embedding Nvidia ARC-Pro at the heart of the new AI-RAN solution.

The partnership will enable Nokia’s mobile network customers to transition from today’s RANs to future AI-RANs.

Nokia’s anyRAN approach simplifies the introduction of the ARC-Pro platform. It establishes software-defined RAN evolution for both Cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN. AirScale baseband is a modular architecture.

New cards can coexist with previously deployed cards. Nokia aims to expand and evolve its AirScale baseband into the 5G-Advanced and 6G era with new AI-RAN capabilities.

Dell Technologies drives innovation in Nokia’s AI-RAN solution with its Dell PowerEdge servers. Engineered for scalability, these servers enable no-touch software upgrades and low-touch silicon upgrades. It ensures a smooth evolution from 5G to 6G.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO of Nokia, says: “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 data centre all the way to the edge.

"Our partnership with Nvidia and their investment in Nokia will accelerate AI-RAN innovation to put an AI data centre into everyone’s pocket. We’re proud to drive the 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.”

T-Mobile US will trial Nokia and Nvidia AI-RAN technologies

Growth in AI traffic is exploding.

Almost 50% of ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly active users access the site via mobile devices. Its monthly mobile app downloads exceed 40 million.

With Nokia and Nvidia-powered AI-RAN systems, mobile operators can improve performance and efficiency.

They can enhance network experiences for future generative AI and agentic AI applications. Operators will be able to introduce new AI services for 6G with the same infrastructure.

It will power billions of new connections for cars, robots, drones and augmented or virtual-reality glasses that demand connectivity, computing and sensing at the edge.

T-Mobile US will collaborate with Nokia and Nvidia to drive and test AI-RAN technologies. It forms part of the 6G innovation and development process. Trials are expected to begin in 2026.

The trials will focus on field validation of performance and efficiency gains for customers. The move will support future AI-native devices and 6G applications, such as integrated sensing and communications.

John Saw, President of Technology and Chief Technology Officer at T-Mobile, says: “With America’s best network, T-Mobile remains committed to advancing next-generation technologies that redefine the customer experience.

"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.”

Nokia and Nvidia extend AI collaboration to Spectrum-X networking

The Nokia and Nvidia AI-RAN platform unifies AI and radio access workloads on a software-defined, accelerated infrastructure. It boosts performance, efficiency and monetisation. It enables a smooth, cost-effective path to 6G.

New capabilities are added through software updates.

The future-proof investments for 6G and beyond. It allows rapid innovation cycles at the pace of AI. The platform serves growing traffic for generative and agentic AI on the same sites as RAN functions.

It applies AI algorithms to improve spectral and energy efficiency, as well as network performance.

It further taps into underutilised RAN assets to host edge AI services and maximise return on investment.

Nokia and Nvidia will collaborate on AI networking solutions. The collaboration will incorporate data centre switching with Nokia’s SR Linux software for the Nvidia  Spectrum-X Ethernet networking platform.

It includes the application of Nokia’s telemetry and fabric management platform on Nvidia AI infrastructure. Furthermore, the companies will explore using Nokia’s optical technologies and capabilities as part of future Nvidia AI infrastructure architecture.

Michael Dell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dell Technologies, says: “The telecommunications industry owns the most valuable real estate for AI, the edge, where data is created. The 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.”

The series of collaborations, anchored by the Nvidia investment in Nokia, represents a definitive move to embed AI at the core of telecommunications.

"The involvement of T-Mobile as an operator and Dell as an infrastructure provider signals a practical, market-wide transition.

"The industry is accelerating its move from hardware-defined systems to a cloud-native architecture. It establishes the software-centric, AI-native framework required to build 6G.”