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Nokia is pushing AI-RAN with mobile operators, supplying defense networks to governments, selling security to internet exchanges, and upgrading longhaul optical infrastructure – a sprawling set of bets that shows how far the Finnish vendor is moving to ride the AI ‘supercycle’ wave.
Nokia’s newest announcements make for a curious collection: AI-RAN trials with operators around the world, a ‘mission-critical’ defense deal in the UK, DDoS protection for a big Spanish internet exchange, and 800G optics for longhaul cable systems. On one level, these are disconnected pieces in a sprawling comms portfolio, selling connectivity, compute, and security wherever the traffic is flowing. On another, they show a company following the AI opportunity from the radio edge all the way into the fibre and data-center plumbing. Let’s review…
AI-RAN with mobile operators
The firm has issued a brief update on its Nvidia-backed AI-RAN product roadmap, set for commercial release next year, by listing a roster of new platform trials (“expanded engagements”) with operators, mostly in the Middle East. It referenced work with du and e& in the UAE, and Mobily, stc, and Zain in Saudi Arabia; other new projects are with A1 Group in Austria; Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan; and TPG Telecom in Australia. Older trials with other operators – NTT Docomo in Japan is named – “continue to progress steadily”, it said.
Notably, T-Mobile in the US, Softbank in Japan, and Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison in Indonesia also have “evaluations” in process. The Finnish firm’s AI-RAN tests now cover most regions of the world – North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East. It said AI-RAN is “rapidly moving from industry vision to commercial reality”. Its last update, in July, said its debut AI-RAN platform with Nvidia would be available for pilot at the end of this year (2026), and on general release some time in 2027.
The product is based on Nokia’s anyRAN software and Nvidia’s Aerial AI-RAN platform. Nokia reckons it has already shown over 20 percent spectral efficiency gains via “AI-driven radio innovations”; it will deliver 50 percent gains by full launch, it said, and over 100 percent by 2028, through “continuous software innovation”. The latter measure would mean telcos doubling the capacity of their existing spectrum assets. Nokia also claimed a growing number of OEM partners, plus “expanded collaboration” with Nvidia on AI-RAN platform and software development tools.
The AI-RAN concept splits roughly three ways: AI for RAN to optimise radio performance, AI on RAN for running AI workloads at the edge, and, nominally, AI and RAN as a shared compute fabric between the two. (RCR has a session with Softbank research fellow Dr Alex Jinsung Choi, representing the AI-RAN Alliance, about progress with each next week at Intelligent RAN Forum.) With $1 billion from GPU-linchpin Nvidia, Nokia is looking to embed accelerated compute into carrier 5G/6G infrastructure to prop-up edge AI cases, alongside RAN management.
Emma Falck, president of mobile infrastructure at Nokia, said: “AI is reshaping the future of telecoms and creating a significant opportunity for operators to rethink the role of the radio network… We are helping operators transform their networks into intelligent, programmable platforms that can support both connectivity and AI services. The increasing engagement we are seeing from service providers around the world shows that AI-RAN is moving quickly from vision to commercial reality and becoming a foundational technology for the AI-native 6G era.”
Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of telecom at Nvidia, said: “AI-RAN will transform the mobile network into one of the world’s largest distributed AI infrastructures. With Nvidia Aerial RAN Computer and Nokia’s AI-RAN software, operators can build software-defined networks that continuously improve in performance and efficiency, while supporting entirely new AI services at the edge. Global operator momentum demonstrates that AI-RAN is becoming the foundation for 5G Advanced today and then software upgradable to AI-native 6G tomorrow.”
In a supplied quote, Remy Pascal, a practice leader at Omdia, said: “The breadth of operator engagement shows that AI-RAN is evolving from a research topic into a strategic priority for a growing number of service providers. What’s notable is the diversity of operators across regions, reflecting an emerging industry consensus that AI will be essential to continue improving network performance and operational efficiency, and to the evolution toward 6G. As deployments mature, collaboration between operators, vendors ,and the broader ecosystem will be critical.”
Critical comms for governments
Nokia has been busy, besides. Nokia Defense, a dedicated unit serving national security and military organizations, has announced a deal with specialist UK system integrator C3IA to sell its “advanced connectivity” solutions to the UK government. A statement said: “The companies will deliver resilient communications, secure information sharing, and network interoperability across land, air, maritime, cyber and space domains.” Both companies are already part of the UK’s £8 billion overhaul of its tactical comms systems – to support all branches of the British Armed Forces.
The UK government’s new framework for Tactical Communication Systems (RM6393) is a procurement vehicle for military-grade tech, and focuses on (private) 5G, plus AI and drones. It covers an eight-year period to June 2034, and splits into three lots – for services, systems, and components. Nokia has been picked among a cohort of suppliers in lots one and three (services and components). Nokia Defense is “participating” in lot one (services) and lot three (components) – albeit via C3IA. Rival Ericsson is also involved in the same lots, but as a direct supplier.
The supply covers private 5G private 4G networks, alongside tactical and operational comms, situational awareness, command and control (C2), sensing, autonomous systems, and edge computing solutions. As written here before (lots), Nokia’s private networks strategy remains muddy, at best, with the firm ostensibly quitting the campus-end of the market (which has tended to include military supplies, especially for tactical and battlefield systems) with the pending sale of its ECE unit, whilst maintaining also it will sell private macro systems.
The latter also includes the sale of RAN units for integration with third-party (non-ECE) campus core systems, as required. It is unclear from the press note from Nokia Defense what its private-networks supply to the UK military will entail. Mikko Viitaniemi, vice president and head of Nokia Defense, said: “We are combining resilient, mission-critical connectivity with expertise in defense systems engineering and support services to help turn technology into operational capability and advance tactical comms and interoperability across future UK defense programs.”
Steve Brown, managing director at C3IA, said: “Delivering defense capability at pace requires more than technology alone. It requires the right combination of secure communications, sector expertise and systems integration. Our partnership with Nokia enables the rapid deployment of innovative capabilities that can deliver real operational value on the battlefield. Ultimately, our shared goal is to connect the battlespace, strengthen national security, and help equip the MOD for the future.”
Security for internet exchanges
Closer to its core AI ‘supercycle’ strategy, perhaps, Nokia has won twin deals with Spanish telco providers, both riding the first wave of AI traffic. It has a contract with ESpanix, Spain’s largest internet exchange point, for deployment of its Deepfield Defender security product to protect Spain’s internet traffic from DDoS attacks, and another with Telxius, a Telefónica-owned longhaul fiber provider, for the deployment of 800G coherent pluggable optics to boost network capacity and efficiency. We will cover both announcements, briefly, in turn.
The ESpanix deal brings DDoS protection as an “optional value-added service”, said Nokia, to more than 200 national and international networks that exchange traffic at its IX point, which serve the majority of internet users in Spain. Nokia’s Deepfield Defender product combines network analytics and telemetry with its proprietary cloud-based Deepfield Secure Genome data feed. Nokia said the combination “detects all types of DDoS attacks in seconds and drives automated, network-based mitigation with a very high degree of granularity”.
It “surgically removes only unwanted traffic while legitimate packets keep flowing”, it said. “By unifying detection and mitigation in the network itself, ESpanix avoids rerouting member traffic to external scrubbing centers: attacks are identified and removed where the traffic flows, keeping Spanish internet traffic and the responsibility for securing it within Spain.” ESpanix was the first IXP in Spain to offer 400G to customers, in 2025, using Nokia’s interconnect and service routers over its optical transport. Nokia has supplied Deepfield to a “growing group” of European exchanges.
Pluggables for transport networks
The Telxius deal for 800G coherent pluggable optics will see the Spanish outfit refit its networks in Europe, the US, and Latin America – “in response to growing customer demand for scalable, high-capacity connectivity across key international network corridors”. Nokia listed demand for “cloud services, AI workloads, and data center interconnection”, as “creating pressure for operators”. Telxius is taking Nokia’s ICE-X 800G ZR/ZR+ product to add capacity across its existing terrestrial infrastructure with IP-over-DWDM networking.
The solution also reduces power and space for network expansion. The setup brings network automation, said Nokia – giving Telxius “greater visibility and control” across its optical transport network. It can also coordinate fault and performance monitoring, and service provisioning. Nokia and Telxius recently claimed an “industry-record” demo of the ICE-X 800G ZR+ product on the BRUSA subsea line, delivering 400Gbps per wavelength across over 5,600 kilometers. Jesús María Rubio, chief technology and information officer at Telxius, stated: “This deployment, together with the successful subsea trial on BRUSA, reinforces Telxius’ position at the forefront of optical innovation.”
