In the shadow of the Arctic Circle, Nokia is making bold moves. The opening of its new R&D center in Oulu marks more than a milestone. It signals a shift in how carriers think, build, and evolve.
As telecom giants face pressure to move beyond bandwidth, Nokia is laying the groundwork for a smarter, AI-enabled future. With deep roots in mobile infrastructure and a hunger to reinvent, Nokia is turning Oulu into a launchpad for the next era of connectivity.
This isn’t just about technology. It’s about cultural change, strategic clarity, and building the infrastructure that will power the global digital economy.
Steve Saunders:
This is Oulu in Northern Finland. It's just a hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, where depending on the season, you can either bask in 24 hours of sunshine or experience a full day of total darkness. It's a fitting metaphor for the telecom industry right now, which is entering a new era of both unprecedented opportunity and existential threat.
I've come to Oulu for the opening of Nokia's new R&D Centre. This facility is central to Nokia's ambitions in both 5G and 6G Mobile technology and AI, and just as the Centre is vital to Nokia, Nokia itself, as one of the world's Big Five telecom vendors, is at the heart of its carrier customer's efforts to transition from simple bandwidth providers to, well, something much more significant.
Justin Hotard:
We need to co-innovate and collaborate, and in fact, that's the story of technology is best of breed coming together, co-innovating and delivering new sources of value.
Steve Saunders:
Nokia is also taking on another key challenge, upgrading Europe's network infrastructure to support the European Union's AI ambitions.
Mikko Hautala:
We only have a handful of critical tech companies in Europe, and Nokia being one of them. The most critical challenge right now is to how do you build a real digital infrastructure for the whole of the continent, and how do you do it fast?
Steve Saunders:
Now, Nokia is extremely well qualified to help with those tasks. It's been one of the world's leading comms companies for four decades and consistently ranked as a leader in every category of telecom tech. But what got Nokia here won't get it there. To achieve its goals, Nokia knows it must also reinvent itself.
Tommi Uitto:
Nostalgia is not very useful. So what we have to maintain culturally is the hunger and the curiosity to learn new things and keep renewing ourselves and be very vigilant about what are the opportunities of the new technologies.
Steve Saunders:
That work has already begun. It has this new R&D Centre, a new CEO, and a new attitude. At the heart of Nokia's transformation lies a question far bigger and more important than just technology or money. How to build an AI enabled infrastructure that can support the new global digital economy.
Justin Hotard:
Nokia of today is a combination of companies. There's a lot of brand equity and value from the mobile phone days, but it's not the mobile phone company. It's about a team, radio and mobile infrastructure here, we're doing optimal manufacturing in the U.S., fiber broadband. There's many folks doing many different things, cloud and software services, but it's about playing our positions and all aligning on the success.
Steve Saunders:
If Nokia can execute on that vision, it has the potential to drive the AI economic super cycle across the European Union and the world. It can empower its carrier customers to reinvent themselves and secure its own continuing success. Finland may sit at the very top of Europe, but there's no doubt after witnessing Nokia's ambitions here, in Oulu, that they intend to be at the very heart of the AI-driven global digital economy.