Nokia and Orange Partner to Advance AI-RAN Innovation for Next-Generation Mobile Networks

Nokia  and Orange  announced a new collaboration focused on developing and evaluating artificial intelligence radio access network (AI-RAN) technologies powered by Nokia’s anyRAN 5G software and NVIDIA AI infrastructure. The initiative aims to explore how emerging AI-RAN capabilities can enhance network performance, energy efficiency and enable new services for Orange customers.

Through a structured co‑innovation framework, Nokia and Orange will jointly identify, design and evaluate new AI‑RAN capabilities. The collaboration aims to explore how a GPU-based radio processor can boost radio performance with more advanced receivers, and how AI can be tightly integrated into the RAN to further improve performance, support new services such as sensing, and bring greater automation and intelligence to both cloud-based and purpose‑built RAN environments.

“Orange is committed to building more efficient, adaptable and sustainable networks. By collaborating with Nokia and NVIDIA on AI‑RAN, we can better understand how the AI-native architecture enabled by AI-RAN can improve the efficiency of key radio algorithms — such as scheduling, beamforming and power optimization — enhancing both spectral efficiency and energy performance, while also enabling advanced capabilities like predictive optimization and radio sensing. This collaboration is an important step in our long‑term network strategy.”

– Laurent Leboucher, Group CTO, Orange

As mobile networks evolve towards 6G, Nokia and Orange will co‑develop approaches to maximize the spectral efficiency of existing and future bands, including the upper 6 GHz band. The 6G-ready platform will enable a smooth, software-defined migration to 6G and support smarter use of compute resources across Orange’s operational footprint.

By working with Nokia and NVIDIA, Orange aims to deepen its understanding of how AI-enabled RAN functions can be integrated seamlessly into operational networks while ensuring sustainability and efficient resource utilization across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“AI is reshaping how networks are designed, introducing new levels of intelligence and flexibility across the radio layer. Through this collaboration with Orange, we are exploring how Nokia’s AI-RAN solution brings advanced AI and RAN functions together in a unified architecture. This will be instrumental in enabling the industry’s transition toward cognitive, AI‑native networks.”

– Pallavi Mahajan, Chief Technology and AI Officer, Nokia