Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Chip giant NVIDIA and global telecom vendor Nokia have announced a partnership to co-develop an AI-native Radio Access Network (AI-RAN) platform that will power the next generation of 5G-Advanced and 6G networks. As part of the agreement, NVIDIA will invest $1 billion in Nokia to acquire a 2.9% stake in the company.
The collaboration brings together NVIDIA’s advanced AI computing capabilities and Nokia’s global presence in radio technologies to create a software-defined, AI-accelerated RAN platform designed for AI-native mobile networks. The companies are introducing the NVIDIA Aerial RAN Computer (ARC-Pro), a 6G-ready computing platform that unifies connectivity, compute, and sensing capabilities for both enterprise and consumer use cases.
The partnership also involves T-Mobile US, which will test and deploy AI-RAN technologies as part of its 6G innovation roadmap, and Dell Technologies, whose PowerEdge servers will provide the compute foundation for the AI-RAN solution.
“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 US, our first AI-RAN deployments in T-Mobile’s network will ensure America leads in the advanced connectivity that AI needs.”
The global AI-RAN market is projected to exceed $200 billion by 2030, according to Omdia, driven by explosive growth in AI traffic and edge intelligence. The Nokia–NVIDIA alliance aims to enable telecom operators to handle generative and agentic AI workloads efficiently, supporting use cases ranging from autonomous vehicles and drones to AR/VR experiences and integrated sensing applications.
T-Mobile US will begin field trials in 2026, validating the performance and efficiency of AI-RAN in live networks. Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, described the collaboration as “making real the telecom industry’s greatest opportunity — distributing AI where data is created.”
By merging AI and networking workloads on a unified infrastructure, NVIDIA and Nokia’s AI-RAN platform offers a future-proof, software-defined path to 6G, designed to scale, self-optimize, and deliver secure, low-latency experiences for billions of connected devices. The partnership will probably be disturbing for Marvell, which has been Nokia’s exclusive chip partner. In addition, telcos have in the past raised concerns about the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of AI RAN.
