Nokia shares rose on Wednesday, after the communications networking company announced it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to position artificial intelligence as a key component of radio access networks (RAN).
“This is an important collaboration with NVIDIA that will explore how AI can play a transformative role in the future of our industry,” said Tommy Oito, head of mobile networks at Nokia. “It's another example of our AnyRAN approach helping make Cloud RAN a business reality.”
Nokia company NOK, headquartered in Finland,
Nokia,
It has seen its shares trend lower over the past two years amid weakness in its networking business. Last month, the company reported a fourth-quarter loss of €33 million ($33.6 million) on revenue that fell 23%.
On Wednesday, Nokia's US-listed shares rose 1.2% in pre-market trading. While the stock is up 2.1% year to date, it is down 25.3% over the past 12 months.
At the same time, shares of Nvidia (NVDA) rose,
which reports fourth-quarter results after the closing bell on Wednesday, has been on a tear, rising 236.3% over the past 12 months.
However, before Wednesday's open, the stock was down 2%, after falling 4.4% on Tuesday.
Nokia will use Nvidia's Grace CPU Superchip for processing, with Layer 1 accelerator technology and Cloud RAN software. Nokia will also use Nvidia chips for AI applications and RAN acceleration, paving the way for “AI-RAN.”
The idea is to remove complexity and provide flexibility, to allow customers to get their Cloud RAN services up and running faster.
“Bringing Nvidia’s advanced computing power to the Nokia platform will provide more performing and energy-efficient Cloud RAN solutions,” said Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of communications at Nvidia.
