Nokia readies for comms AI super cycle with R&D facility

Verification environments

The comms firm also boasts that the campus contains some of the world’s most advanced radio network laboratory and manufacturing technology, and will provide both simulated and real-world field verification environments to accelerate network evolution, ensuring that secure 5G and 6G networks are designed, tested and built in Europe.

The campus will also take advantage of Oulu’s ecosystem as a global testbed for networks both for civilian communications applications and defence. Nokia has a long-standing relationship with the university of Oulu, and has already begun research into prospective 6G technologies after providing support for 5G development.

A current project with the local university involves 5G-connected construction vehicles as part of a plan to build an autonomous low-emission swarm on infra construction machinery involving excavators, bulldozers, compaction machines and dump trucks. Partners in the project supplying the likes of machine control technologies on control technologies, LiDAR, vehicles, sensing systems and trucks include Novatron, Satel, Desitia, Moptel, Sisu Truck, GIM Robotics and Sandvik.

Current work in the defence sector includes a partnership with local firm Bittium, with whom Nokia is building real-time situational awareness through resilient and seamless communications across the battlefield. Nokia is also part of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (Diana) network creating services for Nato forces. Work in this field has encompassed dual-use technologies; extreme condition technologies; 5G/6G research and AI-enhanced networks; and next-generation hybrid networks allowing person-to-person connectivity between tactical and mobile networks.

There is no doubt that the onset of AI has radically transformed the communications industry over the recent past from the context of AI in networking and also networking in AI. But when the Oulu centre was in its design phase, let alone before the digging of the first shovel into the ground in 2022, AI super cycles were not envisaged even if some key applications such as video collaboration and gaming exemplified the need to bolster upstream connectivity capability on networks.

The immediate focus at the base will centre on 5G including 5GPP Standardisation, system-on chips, 5G radio hardware, and software and patents. The Oulu Factory, part of the new campus, will target production of Nokia’s 5G radio and baseband products.

In addition, Nokia said its research and innovation would cover product areas from massive MIMO radios such as Osprey and Habrok to next-generation 6G services, creating secure, high-performance, future-proof connectivity. 

“Our teams in Oulu are shaping the future of 5G and 6G developing our most advanced radio networks,” said Nokia president and CEO Justin Hotard. “Oulu has a unique ecosystem that integrates Nokia’s R&D and smart manufacturing with an ecosystem of partners – including universities, startups and Nato’s Diana test centre.

“Oulu embodies our culture of innovation, and the new campus will be essential to advancing connectivity necessary to power the AI super cycle,” he said. “If you look ahead in the world that we’re in at the start of the AI cyber cycle, connectivity is only going to become more essential.

“As we think about where we are today, and the dependence we have on our mobile devices, that’s one step,” said Hotard. “But whether it’s augmented reality and virtual reality, drones, robotics, autonomous vehicles: there’s going to be many, many additional places where connectivity becomes essential to delivering, delivering the kind of innovation that will make the world smarter, safer and, ultimately, brighter. We really believe that [the new hub] is a core foundation of that innovation for Nokia.”

Expanding on his belief in the importance of ecosystems, he added that one thing he firmly believes in is that, in the world of technology, partnerships is everything. Hotard said that of all the successful technologies, such as cloud and mobile, there wasn’t just one successful firm. There were always partners, whether it was silicon and software, cloud and systems, and there was innovation through collaboration. This, he said, will be true with AI, where the early winners came through partnership and collaboration.

Demand cycle

Hotard stressed that such an ecosystem mindset was equally important for Nokia as it looked ahead with 5G and 6G in a marketplace that was going to go through another demand cycle in connectivity.

“I think we’re in a period where – you can call it digestion, you can call it balancing – the new applications haven’t formed yet,” he said. “For example, if you think about smart glasses, they create a very different profile for the network than mobile devices, because you’re uploading all of the content, and what’s coming down is much lower. That’s a transition.

“We haven’t seen that pivot yet,” said Hotard. “Those types of things will continue to evolve for us. It’s about investing in the core innovation and taking advantage of that opportunity. I believe the AI super cycle will drive investment in mobile infrastructure and mobility over time. And I think that’s going to continue for us. I think it is a massive opportunity.”

Uitto cited research backing up the emergence of these dynamics and the way in which upstream will gain importance. “The Bell Labs estimate is that mobile network traffic will grow at the pace of at least 19% – that’s the modest scenario,” he said. “There’s also a 28% CAGR scenario – five times over the next five to six years. So far, the growth in mobile traffic networks has been very much driven by video.

“However, now what we foresee is that AI will be driving further traffic growth [through] different types of AI applications,” said Uitto. “And it will also actually change, interestingly, the traffic profile so that the uplink performance from device to the network, that traffic will grow relatively speaking more than the downlink. And what this then drives is network investments. That that’s how we then indirectly benefit, also in the radio access networks from the use of AI.”

Radio technology

The upshot was that 6G would see Nokia looking at added investments in radio technology, in particular spectral efficiency improvements, and in being cloud-first and software-driven with open application programming interfaces (APIs). The latter would not be about monetising the APIs directly, but providing access to them.

Hotard was adamant that if you look at the lessons of 4G and 5G, the forthcoming 6G industry needs to provide new sources of monetisation other than just the network itself. How the ecosystem flows and takes advantage of that was, he conceded, maybe still a question, but he saw a great opportunity nonetheless.

On the subject of 6G monetisation opportunities, Uitto highlighted the architecture’s potential. For example, with a non-real-time RAN intelligent controller, there will be an interface on top of which you could write apps – some of which in turn could be used for monetisation. He also cited service management and orchestration, one of the hottest topics in mobility business, where there were opportunities for network slicing and also network-as-a-code on the core network side.

Going forward, Uitto held out the prospect of utilising cloud RAN. “If you built it in such a way that some of the computing for base station would be made with the AI-capable GPUs [graphics processing units] … then maybe some of that computing capacity could be sold to anybody who needs inferencing capacity,” he said. “You could imagine, in our wildest dreams, a base station site being a far edge cloud site capable of computing and inference.

“In 6G, there is also Isac, integrated sensing and communication, that should also open some new opportunities of monetising the network, because your radio is eventually capable of modelling the physical world as a digital twin, and then constantly monitoring the changes in the physical world,” said Uitto.

Interestingly, he saw the 6G deployment roadmap as beginning as an overlay on 5G standalone networks. Partly a matter of timing, he noted that 5G standalone was still scarcely deployed – especially in Europe – and by the time all 5G networks were standalone, that would be the signal to introduce G6 as a radio interface, partly AI-based and partly a deterministic AI air interface, coinciding with 5G standalone service management and orchestration.