NVIDIA to invest $1 billion in Nokia to accelerate AI-RAN innovation and lead transition from 5G to 6G.

News Summary:

• NVIDIA and Nokia to establish a strategic partnership to enable accelerated development and deployment of next generation AI native mobile networks and AI networking infrastructure.
• NVIDIA introduces NVIDIA Arc Aerial RAN Computer, a 6G-ready telecommunications computing platform.
• Nokia to expand its global access portfolio with new AI-RAN product based on NVIDIA platform.
• T-Mobile U.S. is working with Nokia and NVIDIA to integrate AI-RAN technologies into its 6G development process.
• Collaboration enables new AI services and improved consumer experiences to support explosive growth in mobile AI traffic.
• Dell Technologies provides PowerEdge servers to power new AI-RAN solution.
• Partnership marks turning point for the industry, paving the way to AI-native 6G by taking AI-RAN to innovation and commercialization at a global scale.

NVIDIA and Nokia  announced a strategic partnership to add NVIDIA-powered, commercial-grade AI-RAN products to Nokia’s industry-leading RAN portfolio, enabling communication service providers to launch AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G networks on NVIDIA platforms. NVIDIA will also invest $1 billion in Nokia at a subscription price of $6.01 per share. The investment is subject to customary closing conditions.

The partnership marks the beginning of the AI-native wireless era, providing the foundation to support AI-powered consumer experiences and enterprise services at the edge.

In addition, the partnership addresses the fast-growing AI-RAN market, representing a significant opportunity within the RAN market that is expected to exceed a cumulative $200 billion by 2030, according to analyst firm Omdia.

Together, NVIDIA and Nokia are also laying the strategic infrastructure and opening up a new high-growth frontier for telecom providers by delivering distributed edge AI inferencing at scale.

T-Mobile U.S. will also collaborate with Nokia and NVIDIA to drive and test AI-RAN technologies as a part of the 6G innovation and development process, reinforcing its global leadership in driving wireless innovation. Trials are expected to begin in 2026, focused on field validation of performance and efficiency gains for customers.

The move will enable massive improvements in performance and efficiency, helping ensure that consumers using generative, agentic and physical AI applications on their devices will have seamless network experiences. It will also 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.

“Telecommunications is a critical national infrastructure — the digital nervous system of our economy and security,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Built on NVIDIA CUDA and AI, AI-RAN will revolutionize telecommunications — a generational platform shift that empowers the United States to regain global leadership in this 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.”

“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 center 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 center into everyone’s pocket,” said Justin Hotard, President and CEO of Nokia. “We’re proud to drive this industry transformation with NVIDIA, Dell Technologies, and T-Mobile U.S., our first AI-RAN deployments in T-Mobile’s network will ensure America leads in the advanced connectivity that AI needs.”

Supporting Exponential Growth in AI traffic

Growth in AI traffic is exploding. For example, almost 50% of ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly active users access the site via mobile devices, and its monthly mobile app downloads exceed 40 million.

With Nokia and NVIDIA-powered AI-RAN systems, mobile operators can improve performance and efficiency as well as enhance network experiences for future generative AI and agentic AI applications and experiences. They will be able to introduce new AI services for 6G with the same infrastructure, powering billions of new connections for cars, robots, drones and augmented- and virtual-reality glasses that demand connectivity, computing and sensing at the edge.

Seamless Transition to AI-Native Networks

NVIDIA is introducing Aerial RAN Computer Pro (ARC-Pro), a 6G-ready accelerated computing platform that combines connectivity, computing and sensing capabilities, enabling telcos to move from 5G-Advanced to 6G through software upgrades.

The NVIDIA ARC-Pro reference design is 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 will accelerate the availability of its 5G and 6G RAN software on the NVIDIA CUDA® platform 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.

Nokia’s unique anyRAN approach simplifies the introduction of the ARC-Pro platform by establishing software-defined RAN evolution for both Cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN. AirScale baseband is a modular architecture in which 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 is driving innovation in Nokia’s AI-RAN solution with its state-of-the-art Dell PowerEdge servers. Engineered for seamless scalability, these servers enable no-touch software upgrades and low-touch silicon upgrades, ensuring a smooth evolution from 5G to 5G Advanced and 6G. With their robust, high-performance infrastructure, Dell PowerEdge servers are the ultimate compute platform for operators deploying AI- RAN solutions.

Future Proofed for 6G

Nokia and NVIDIA’s AI-RAN platform unifies AI and radio access workloads on a software-defined, accelerated infrastructure, boosting performance, efficiency and monetization while enabling a smooth, cost-effective path to 6G.

New capabilities are added through software updates, future-proofing investments for 6G and beyond, while enabling rapid innovation cycles at the pace of AI. It serves growing generative AI and agentic AI traffic on the same sites as RAN functions, applying AI algorithms to improve spectral and energy efficiency, as well as overall network performance, and by tapping into underutilized RAN assets to host edge AI services and maximize return on investment.

“With America’s best network, T-Mobile remains committed to advancing next-generation technologies that redefine the customer experience,” said John Saw, president of technology and chief technology officer at T-Mobile. “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 U.S. 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 telecommunications industry owns the most valuable real estate for AI — the edge, where data is created,” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies. “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 modernize 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.”

Additional AI Networking Solutions Cooperation

Nokia and NVIDIA will also collaborate on AI networking solutions, including data center switching with Nokia’s SR Linux software for the NVIDIA Spectrum-X™ Ethernet networking platform and the application of Nokia’s telemetry and fabric management platform on NVIDIA AI infrastructure.

The companies will also explore the use of Nokia’s optical technologies and capabilities as part of future NVIDIA AI infrastructure architecture.