"Today we announce a partnership with Nokia, the world's second-largest telecom equipment manufacturer, in a $3 trillion industry," declared NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during his keynote at the GTC Washington conference on October 28.

With millions of base stations worldwide, the collaboration aims to transform the industry foundationally through accelerated computing and artificial intelligence.

Coinciding with Huang's announcement, Nokia revealed that NVIDIA would make a $10 billion equity investment by subscribing to new shares in the company. This partnership signifies a joint effort by the two tech giants to pioneer an AI- native wireless era.

01 Strategic Investment Details

NVIDIA will subscribe to 166,389,351 new Nokia shares issued at a price of $6.01 per share.

Upon completion of the transaction, NVIDIA will hold approximately 2.9% of Nokia's total shares.

Nokia stated that the capital raised will be used to accelerate the development of its 5G and 6G RAN software. The transaction is expected to close after meeting standard conditions.

The market reacted strongly to the news. Nokia's stock price soared over 26% intraday on October 28 following the announcement. NVIDIA's shares also rose more than 5%, pushing its market capitalization to a record high of $4.92 trillion.

02 Technology Integration Path

Under the partnership, Nokia will adapt its 5G and 6G software to run optimally on NVIDIA's chips.

Conversely, NVIDIA will explore integrating Nokia's data center technologies into its AI infrastructure.

NVIDIA introduced the Arc Aerial RAN Computer, a new product line featuring an accelerated computing platform designed to support 6G development.

"Nokia will adopt NVIDIA-ARC as the future base station architecture, which also remains compatible with Nokia's current AirScale base station architecture," explained Huang. "We will upgrade millions of base stations worldwide with 6G and AI capabilities."

03 Pioneering the AI-RAN Era

A central goal of this collaboration is to capture leadership in the AI-RAN (Artificial Intelligence - Radio Access Network) market and strengthen positions in data center networking.

AI-RAN represents the deep integration of communications and artificial intelligence technologies.

Nokia President and CEO Justin Hotard described the vision: "Our collaboration will accelerate AI- RAN innovation, effectively putting an AI data center in everyone's pocket."

Huang characterized the partnership as a "generational platform shift" for the telecom industry, comparable to the evolution from the internet to cloud computing.

He envisions NVIDIA replicating its cloud success across wireless telecom networks, extending computing power directly to the edge where traditional data centers cannot reach.

04 Broad Market Prospects

According to analyst firm Omdia, the rapidly growing AI-RAN market holds enormous potential, with a projected cumulative value exceeding $200 billion by 2030.

This collaboration positions both companies to capture significant opportunities within the AI-RAN sector.

U.S. telecom operator T-Mobile US has already announced its participation with Nokia and NVIDIA in 6G development initiatives, focusing on advancing and testing AI-RAN technologies.

Related trials are scheduled to commence in 2026.

The partnership will support future AI-native devices like drones or AR/VR glasses while preparing the groundwork for 6G applications such as integrated sensing and communication.

05 Ecosystem Expansion

The Nokia investment is not NVIDIA's only major recent strategic move.

In September, NVIDIA announced a $50 billion investment in CPU maker Intel, involving a collaboration to develop custom chips.

That same month, NVIDIA revealed plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, supporting the deployment of at least 10 gigawatts of AI data center capacity.

In October, Huang confirmed NVIDIA's investment in Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, remarking, "My only regret is not investing more in xAI."

These investments consistently accompany deep technical cooperation, enabling NVIDIA to drive product adoption and explore new product lines.

06 Strong Chip Business Growth

During the GTC conference, Huang also provided updates on NVIDIA's chip business.

The NVIDIA Blackwell GPU is now in full production in Arizona, USA.

NVIDIA is already preparing for production of its next-generation Rubin architecture chips, expected to enter manufacturing around or potentially before October next year.

Huang projected that the Blackwell and Rubin architectures could generate cumulative revenue exceeding $500 billion during this and the 2026 calendar years, stemming from 20 million GPUs. The company has already shipped 6 million units.

This revenue forecast would be five times the revenue brought by the Hopper architecture chips between 2023 and 2025.

Jensen Huang outlined the future vision in his speech: "The internet made communication possible, and smart companies previously built a cloud computing system on top of it. Now, NVIDIA intends to do the same over wireless telecom networks."

The $3 trillion telecommunications industry is approaching its AI moment, and the alliance between NVIDIA and Nokia may well be the spark that ignites this revolution.