Pranav Hotkar
GTC Washington, D.C. , October 28, 2025- NVIDIA and Nokia announced a strategic partnership and a USD 1.0 billion equity investment that will see NVIDIA take roughly a 2.9% stake in the Finnish equipment maker as the two firms move to build AI-native radio access networks and speed the industry’s path toward 6G.
The deal, unveiled at NVIDIA’s GTC event and set out in Nokia’s stock-exchange release, will have NVIDIA subscribe for about 166.4 million newly issued Nokia shares at USD 6.01 each, subject to customary closing conditions.
Nokia said it will use the proceeds to accelerate its push into AI and cloud-aligned networking, and both companies framed the move to embed accelerated computing into mobile networks and data-centre networking.
NVIDIA described the collaboration as a cornerstone for “AI-RAN” products that combine NVIDIA accelerated computing with Nokia’s RAN portfolio and unveiled a 6G-ready telecommunications platform, the ARC-Pro (Aerial RAN Computer), intended as a reference design for vendors and operators to deploy AI-native capabilities at the edge. The announcement also named Dell Technologies and T-Mobile U.S. as early collaborators on testing and integration plans.
Both companies used strong language about the industry implications.
Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s founder and CEO, said, “Telecommunications is a critical national infrastructure, the digital nervous system of our economy and security. 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.”
Justin Hotard, Nokia’s president and CEO, added, “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… Our partnership with NVIDIA, and their investment in Nokia, will accelerate AI-RAN innovation to put an AI data center into everyone’s pocket.”
Markets reacted quickly, Nokia shares jumped sharply on the news, trading at their highest levels in years as investors priced in the strategic upside of tighter AI-compute integration with telecom gear. Analysts noted the deal follows a broader industry pattern of chipmakers and cloud vendors partnering with carriers and infrastructure suppliers to seed AI capability across networks and the edge.
Key questions remain public, the exact timetable for product rollouts, the technical specifications of ARC-Pro in operator field trials, the terms required to close the directed share issuance, and how regulators will view the strategic link between a major U.S. AI-chip company and a global telecom supplier. Nokia has scheduled a press and investor call to discuss details and will register the new shares following standard filings.
For now, the headline is clear, two major infrastructure players are betting that combining accelerated AI compute with radio networks will be a defining axis of the next telecom era.
