Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced an agreement with SoftBank Corp. to conduct a commercial AI-RAN field trial in Japan in 2027, according to a press release from the companies.

The planned deployment will use Nokia's anyRAN software on SoftBank's AITRAS platform, combined with Nvidia's Aerial RAN Computer (ARC) and the AITRAS Orchestrator. The trial aims to validate AI-RAN technology under live commercial network traffic conditions.

The hardware configuration will include an Nvidia Grace CPU, Nvidia RTX PRO 4500 GPU, and Nvidia ConnectX-8 networking. Integration between Nokia MantaRay and the AITRAS Orchestrator is planned to support coordinated management of AI and RAN workloads.

Ryuji Wakikawa, Senior Vice President and CTO of SoftBank Corp., said: "Our planned field trial with Nokia will mark a significant milestone in AI-RAN's transition from concept to execution. We will integrate Nokia's AI-native anyRAN into our AITRAS platform as its RAN component, with the AITRAS Orchestrator working in coordination with Nokia's RAN and MantaRay."

Pallavi Mahajan, Chief Technology and AI Officer at Nokia, said: "By bringing AI and RAN workloads onto common, programmable infrastructure, AI-RAN has the potential to unlock new levels of spectral efficiency while providing the distributed intelligence needed to support physical AI."

The trial builds on an existing collaboration between Nokia and SoftBank in AI-RAN, supported by Nvidia's accelerated computing platform. The companies said the trial represents a step in moving AI-RAN technology from laboratory development toward real-world deployment.