Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced what it described as the industry's first commercial AI-RAN platform, developed in partnership with Nvidia, aimed at improving radio network capacity and economics for telecommunications providers.

The platform is built on Nokia's anyRAN software and Nvidia's Aerial AI-RAN accelerated computing technology. According to Nokia, the platform has demonstrated spectral efficiency gains of more than 20%, with the company targeting 50% gains by 2027 and more than 100% by 2028.

"AI-RAN is the biggest innovation in radio in decades," said Justin Hotard, President and Chief Executive Officer at Nokia. "Nokia's anyRAN software, powered by Nvidia's Aerial AI-RAN platform, unlocks greater performance from the spectrum operators already have."

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the collaboration aims to bring Nvidia CUDA and AI into the baseband, calling it "a generational shift for operators."

Nokia's platform offers three deployment paths: an expansion card for existing AirScale hardware, a standalone GPU-powered AI-RAN node, and cloud-native COTS server solutions delivered through ecosystem partners. The platform supports 4G, 5G, and future 6G workloads and is compliant with Open RAN standards.

Nokia also introduced a software subscription model that allows telecommunications providers to receive AI updates and performance improvements without hardware upgrades. Pilot deployments are expected to begin at the end of 2025, with commercial availability planned for 2027.

Marvell is also part of Nokia's ecosystem, providing AI-accelerated merchant silicon for its software-defined AI-RAN architecture.