NVIDIA Joins Hands with Nokia for New AI-RAN Infrastructure to Build 6G
NVIDIA has announced a highly promising relationship with Nokia to support 6G connectivity via its new AI-RAN products. The partnership will incorporate NVIDIA's AI computing hardware such as Grace CPUs and Blackwell GPUs into the telecom infrastructure from Nokia. For this purpose, NVIDIA has invested $1 billion into Nokia for the price of $6.01 per share.
Technology the ARC Platform of NVIDIA
The partnership can herald an "AI-native wireless era" to actually power future AI services. This will be enabled through the new line of products developed by NVIDIA which is called ARC (Aerial RAN Computer).
The ARC platform is designed to empower 6G computing by incorporating RAN software within the NVIDIA CUDA technology stack directly, accelerating performance. For the first time, this network infrastructure will be provided with trillions of computing resources through Grace CPUs and Blackwell GPUs in the hardware.
Nokia's Role and Seamless Integration
Nokia is integrating into its current RAN build-out all of the parts in the ARC ecosystem. The company will speed up the readiness of its 5G and 6G RAN software on the NVIDIA CUDA platform, all of which have been hardened with NVIDIA's ARC-Pro hardware as part of its new AI-RAN solutions to ensure a seamless transition for its mobile network customers from current RAN networks to the future AI-RAN architecture.
Timeline for Real Testing
NVIDIA has made it clear that T-Mobile will soon kick off the field tests of AI-RAN technologies based in the United States in 2026. From all indications, this testing is expected to be one of the significant measures to prepare ground for 6G innovations at a significant scale.
