Nokia and Orange Start AI-RAN Development With NVIDIA

Nokia and Orange started a collaboration to develop and evaluate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Radio Access Network (RAN), or AI-RAN, technologies using Nokia anyRAN 5G software and NVIDIA AI infrastructure. The companies said the work will focus on how AI-RAN capabilities affect network performance, energy efficiency, and new service capabilities.

The initiative followed a structured co-innovation framework in which Nokia and Orange plan to jointly identify, design, and evaluate AI-RAN capabilities. It also included an exploration of how a GPU-based radio processor could be used for advanced receivers and how AI could be integrated into the RAN for automation in cloud-based and purpose-built RAN environments.

Nokia and Orange described an AI-RAN solution intended to integrate AI into the RAN. They said the collaboration will examine capabilities tied to predictive optimization and radio sensing, including integrated sensing and communication, and it will consider performance areas such as scheduling, beamforming, and power optimization.

As part of the development effort, the companies said they planned to co-develop approaches to maximize spectral efficiency for existing and future bands, including the upper 6 GHz band, and to support a 6G-ready software-defined migration. Laurent Leboucher, Group CTO, Orange, said, “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,” and Pallavi Mahajan, Chief Technology and AI Officer, Nokia, said, “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 and NVIDIA’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,” at the time of the announcement.