Nokia launches AI-RAN with NVIDIA to boost radio efficiency

Nokia launched its AI-RAN platform on July 15, built on the company’s anyRAN software and NVIDIA’s Aerial system. Nokia reported more than 20% spectral efficiency gains in early tests and has set targets of 50% by 2027 and over 100% by 2028. The company plans pilot trials by the end of this year and expects commercial availability in 2027. Operators will buy the capability as a software subscription rather than through a hardware refresh.

The platform offers three deployment options: a GPU-powered plug-in card for existing AirScale sites, a standalone AI-RAN node, and a cloud-server build delivered through partners. Nokia describes the architecture as GPU-accelerated, using NVIDIA silicon and CUDA software to increase capacity from operators’ existing spectrum.

The launch is part of a broader effort to address Nokia’s mobile infrastructure performance. Since becoming CEO in 2025, Justin Hotard identified radio as a top challenge; at a November capital markets day he told investors the mobile business had “not delivered acceptable returns” and reorganized it into a new Mobile Infrastructure segment. In October 2025 NVIDIA invested about $1 billion for roughly a 3% stake in Nokia, a partnership Nokia says lets it reduce in-house chip research and redirect spending toward software and recurring revenue.

A major competitor entered the market earlier. In June, that vendor began selling a commercial AI-in-RAN software subscription that it reports delivers up to 20% higher downlink throughput and up to 10% better spectral efficiency across more than 15 live deployments and runs on operators’ existing baseband silicon without GPUs. Nokia frames its claim to be the industry’s first around the choice of a GPU-accelerated architecture rather than AI features layered on existing baseband silicon.

Nokia’s chief technology officer, Pallavi Mahajan, has acknowledged that some Layer 1 software will be tied to underlying hardware. The company points to an ecosystem that includes merchant silicon from Marvell and describes the platform as Open RAN-compliant, while noting that the performance case it is promoting currently runs through NVIDIA’s software and silicon stack. Analyst firm Omdia estimated the cumulative AI-RAN opportunity could exceed $200 billion by 2030, a figure Nokia cited in its launch materials.

The company’s AI and cloud positioning coincided with a re-rating of its shares through 2026 and the AI-RAN announcement arrived days before Nokia reported second-quarter results.