The two companies announced that NVIDIA will make an equity investment of $1 billion in Nokia at $1.601 per share.
With the investment, which is subject to certain customary closing conditions, Nokia will issue 166,389,351 new shares to NVIDIA, giving it a 2.90 percent stake in the Finnish company.
Nokia said it will use the proceeds from the issuance to accelerate its strategic plans “to advance reliable connectivity for the AI supercycle and other general corporate objectives.”
Additionally, Nokia plans to accelerate the development of its 5G and 6G RAN software to run on NVIDIA’s architecture and will also invest to expand its presence in the AI and cloud market with data center connected networking solutions.
In addition to this equity investment, Nokia and NVIDIA also agreed to collaborate on AI networking solutions and explore opportunities to incorporate Nokia’s data center switching and optical technologies into NVIDIA’s future AI infrastructure architecture.
Circling back to RunTech, Nvidia said T-Mobile America will collaborate with NVIDIA and Nokia “to pilot and test AI-RAN technologies as part of the 6G innovation and development process, reinforcing its global leadership in wireless innovation.” Trials are expected to begin next year and will focus on field validation of performance and performance benefits for consumers.
“The next leap in telecom isn’t just from 5G to 6G—it’s a fundamental network design to deliver AI-powered connectivity, capable of processing intelligence from the data center. Our partnership with NVIDIA, and their investment in Nokia, will accelerate AI-RAN innovation to put an AI data center in everyone’s pocket,“said Nokia President and CEO Justin Hotard.
“We are proud to drive this industry transformation with NVIDIA, Dell Technologies, and T-Mobile America.” Hotard added.
Commenting on the partnership with Nokia and T-Mobile, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said, “Telecommunications is a vital national infrastructure – the digital nervous system of our economy and security. Built on NVIDIA CUDA and AI, AI-RAN will revolutionize telecommunications—a once-in-a-generation platform change that empowers the U.S. to gain global leadership in this critical infrastructure technology. Together with Nokia and the US telecom ecosystem, we are fueling this revolution, empowering operators to build the intelligent, adaptive networks that will define the next generation of global connectivity.“
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