Nokia, on July 15, 2026, has launched the first commercial AI-RAN platform, signifying the most important architecture change to hit the radio industry in decades. As AI becomes the primary workload within mobile networks, telecommunication providers require greater capacity, improved economics, and more rapid innovation without the dependence on traditional hardware upgrade processes. Nokia’s AI-RAN platform gives telecommunication providers the capability to unlock substantially more uplink and downlink bandwidth from the spectrum and radio infrastructure they currently own. It provides a practical route to AI-native networks while boosting network economics and speeding up innovation at software speed.
According to Justin Hotard, Nokia’s President and CEO, AI-RAN is the most significant advancement in radio in decades. AI-RAN helps make the network smarter, connects AI to the physical world, and enables telecommunications companies to get more from their current infrastructure, which includes a software upgrade path to 6G. The anyRAN software of Nokia, backed by NVIDIA’s Aerial AI-RAN platform, allows for more performance from the spectrum operators already own and can be implemented with current Nokia or ORAN-compliant radio units. This implies higher performance, better returns, and faster distribution of new services to operators.
It is worth noting that Nokia’s first commercial AI-RAN platform offers a step change in network performance along with economics, built on AI-native network architecture of Nokia and NVIDIA’s accelerated computing. AI-driven radio developments have already enabled the AI-RAN platform to accomplish over 20% spectral efficiency gains. The company is on course to offer 50% spectral gains by 2027, plus more than 100% by 2028, enabling telecom providers to handle substantially more traffic in dense cells while lowering cost per bit and enhancing the user experience.
Says Founder and CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang, “Telecommunications is entering the AI era — the radio access network is the next AI infrastructure. Together with Nokia, we are bringing NVIDIA CUDA and AI into the baseband, transforming RAN into a planet-scale AI computer. This is a generational shift for operators — unlocking more capacity and efficiency from today’s spectrum while creating the foundation for new AI services and the 6G era.”
A new software subscription model allows telecommunication providers to take advantage of AI innovation, novel features, and performance improvements without the need for hardware refresh cycles. Nokia will commercially launch its AI-RAN solutions in 2027, with trial deployments beginning at the end of 2026, on a roadmap that makes use of NVIDIA’s programmable merchant silicon platforms.
According to Practice Leader, Mobile Infrastructure, Omdia, Rémy Pascal, “Nokia’s AI-RAN launch represents an important step in bringing AI-RAN from industry vision to commercial reality. The addition of the new AI-RAN node alongside the AirScale capacity plug-in unit and cloud-native deployment options gives operators practical choices for adopting AI-native networks based on their existing infrastructure and transformation goals. By combining AI-accelerated computing with a software-defined architecture and a clear product roadmap, Nokia is helping operators unlock greater capacity, improve network economics, and accelerate the transition toward AI-native RAN.”
One AI-native platform and three ways to adopt it
It is well to be noted that the first commercial AI-RAN platform by Nokia is built on a unified software-defined framework driven by Nokia’s anyRAN software and NVIDIA’s accelerated computing, recognizing that telecom providers have different network plans and established RAN bases. It supports 4G and 5G as well as future network evolutions and comes with three hardware platform choices that include an expansion card for standard AirScale deployments and a Cloud RAN option. The platform is completely Open RAN compliant and allows for open and interoperable multi-vendor configurations, giving users the ability to select the hardware and cloud environments that satisfy their needs. These hardware platform choices enable telecommunications companies to modernize at their own pace, while safeguarding current infrastructure investments, taking advantage of common software roadmaps, and speeding up innovation at software speed. Telecommunication providers can roll out AI-RAN in phases, employing the approach that matches their deployment approach, capacity requirements, and installed base.
Extend existing investments
The new GPU-powered AirScale capacity plug-in unit is the most effective way forward for existing Nokia customers. Built for Nokia’s deployed AirScale base, the approach brings accelerated computing power from NVIDIA to current network infrastructure, making possible a major capability leap with an easy upgrade path that preserves standard network investments. The AI-accelerated merchant silicon from Marvell also enables this approach as part of the broader ecosystem approach by Nokia towards software-defined AI-RAN architectures. Telecommunication providers may implement advanced AI capabilities, continually enhance performance with software, and boost the value of deployed infrastructure.
Scale AI-native capability at all time
Nokia has introduced what it says is the industry’s first independent AI-RAN node powered by a GPU for telecom operators who want the greatest possible installation flexibility and superior performance. It offers AI-accelerated RAN performance for every network environment and allows for 4G, 5G, and future 6G workloads on a universal platform. It can be installed as a standalone node, in distributed configurations, or together with AirScale as a single logical base station, offering operators an extremely flexible path to grow AI-native networks while retaining deployment preference.
Developing a cloud-native AI-RAN
Nokia is launching GPU-powered AI-RAN COTS server solutions with ecosystem partners for telecom providers adopting cloud-native architectures. The platforms facilitate an open and safe supply chain and deployment based on industry-standard rapid computing infrastructure integrating cloud-native flexibility with the efficiency requirements of AI-native radio networks.
Innovation at the speed of the software
AI-RAN by Nokia is a fundamental shift from hardware-driven radio networks to software-defined platforms, where innovations in software and AI are constantly enhancing performance. Through Nokia’s new subscription-based commercial model, telecommunication companies receive continuous availability of cutting-edge artificial intelligence algorithms, spectral efficiency optimization, network optimization capabilities, and future AI-native features, which can be enabled via software. This strategy enables them to leverage ongoing innovation while optimizing long-term infrastructure yields for better TCO as well as performance with no hardware premium. Networks can improve efficiency, performance, resilience, and security on an ongoing basis as new features become readily accessible as opposed to waiting for the next hardware cycle.
With AI-accelerated computing, advanced artificial intelligence algorithms as well as an open ecosystem approach, Nokia is assisting telecommunications companies in gaining access to higher capacities, stronger economics and constant innovation, all while building a solid foundation for future network transformation.