Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has announced expanded engagement with multiple telecommunications operators across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East for its AI-RAN platform, moving from early evaluation to lab and live field trials.

The operators involved in the expanded engagement include A1 Group, Chunghwa Telecom, du, e&, Mobily, stc, TPG Telecom, and Zain Saudi. Trials with previously announced partners, including NTT DOCOMO, continue to progress, according to the company's statement.

Nokia said its AI-RAN platform has delivered more than 20% improvements in spectral efficiency and that further gains are planned through a software roadmap extending through 2027 and 2028. The platform combines Nokia's anyRAN software with NVIDIA's Aerial RAN Computer.

Previous evaluations have included T-Mobile, SoftBank and Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison. Nokia also cited an expanded collaboration with NVIDIA on AI-RAN platform and software development tools.

Remy Pascal, Practice Leader for Mobile Infrastructure at Omdia, said: "The breadth of operator engagement announced by Nokia shows that AI-RAN is evolving from a research topic into a strategic priority for a growing number of service providers."

Emma Falck, President of Mobile Infrastructure at Nokia, said: "The growing ecosystem of partners across regions demonstrates that AI-RAN is becoming a shared industry priority, enabling more intelligent, efficient and software-driven networks."

Ronnie Vasishta, Senior Vice President of Telecom at NVIDIA, said: "AI-RAN will transform the mobile network into one of the world's largest distributed AI infrastructures."