NVIDIA and Nokia announce a strategic partnership to integrate NVIDIA-powered, commercial-grade AI-RAN products into Nokia’s RAN portfolio, paving the way for communication service providers to deploy AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G networks on NVIDIA platforms.
As part of the agreement, NVIDIA will invest $1 billion in Nokia at a subscription price of $6.01 per share, subject to customary closing conditions.
The collaboration marks the start of what the companies describe as the “AI-native wireless era”, aimed at enabling AI-driven consumer and enterprise experiences at the Edge.
According to analyst firm Omdia, the AI-RAN market represents a major growth opportunity, projected to exceed a cumulative $200 billion by 2030. By combining expertise, Nokia and NVIDIA intend to establish the infrastructure to support distributed Edge AI inferencing at scale.
T-Mobile U.S. will collaborate with both companies to test and validate AI-RAN technologies as part of its 6G innovation programme. Field trials are scheduled for 2026, focusing on measuring performance and efficiency improvements.
The initiative is expected to significantly enhance network performance and efficiency, ensuring seamless connectivity for Generative, agentic, and physical AI applications. It also prepares networks for AI-native devices, such as drones and augmented- or virtual-reality glasses, and 6G capabilities like integrated sensing and communications.
Jensen Huang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer 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 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.”
Justin Hotard, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia, adds: “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 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.”
AI traffic continues to grow rapidly. Almost 50% of ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly active users access the platform via mobile devices, while its mobile app exceeds 40 million monthly downloads.
Nokia and NVIDIA say their AI-RAN systems will enhance network performance and efficiency while enabling new services for 6G networks. These systems will support future applications requiring Edge computing and sensing – including drones, autonomous vehicles, robots, and immersive reality devices.
NVIDIA introduced the Aerial RAN Computer Pro (ARC-Pro), a 6G-ready platform that combines connectivity, computing, and sensing capabilities. The design allows telecom operators to migrate from 5G-Advanced to 6G through software updates.
Nokia plans to integrate NVIDIA’s ARC-Pro into its 5G and 6G RAN software, expanding its RAN portfolio and enabling operators to transition seamlessly to AI-RAN. Its anyRAN approach supports both Cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN architectures, while its modular AirScale baseband system evolves into the 5G-Advanced and 6G era.
Dell Technologies contributes to the collaboration through its PowerEdge servers, which support no-touch software and low-touch silicon upgrades. These systems are designed to deliver scalability and smooth progression from 5G to future standards.
Preparing for 6G
The Nokia–NVIDIA AI-RAN platform unifies AI and radio access workloads on a software-defined, accelerated infrastructure. This enables network operators to add new capabilities through software updates, improving efficiency, energy use, and monetisation while maintaining readiness for 6G evolution.
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 Centre 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.”
Michael Dell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dell Technologies, comments: “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.”
Expanding AI networking cooperation
Beyond AI-RAN, Nokia, and NVIDIA also collaborate on AI networking solutions. This includes integrating Nokia’s SR Linux software with NVIDIA’s Spectrum-X Ethernet networking platform and applying Nokia’s telemetry and fabric management tools to NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure.
The companies also explore the integration of Nokia’s optical technologies into future NVIDIA AI infrastructure designs, further extending their collaboration across the wider AI ecosystem.
