Nokia expands collaboration with Deutsche Telekom on AI‑native RAN

Nokia and Deutsche Telekom announced an expansion of their Innovation Cooperation Program to accelerate development of cloud-based, disaggregated and AI-native Radio Access Network (RAN) technologies, a change the companies said would support multivendor mobile networks and improve network efficiency, programmability and long-term operational value for service providers.

The expanded work increased cooperation on Open Fronthaul integration and built on earlier efforts that linked Nokia baseband units with third-party O-RAN‑compliant radio units in Germany. The companies said cloudified baseband and network softwarization remained key components of Deutsche Telekom’s Open RAN strategy, and a vendor-independent Service Management and Orchestration platform was described as a critical pillar for centralized control across multivendor RAN environments.

The joint initiative outlined development of AI-native RAN use cases including AI-powered receivers, channel estimation and prediction, adaptive beamforming and predictive network optimization. The companies said they planned proof-of-concept trials in lab and live environments at Deutsche Telekom Labs and in the field, and to establish open, disaggregated AI-native RAN architectures using standards-aligned, interoperable interfaces.

Additional multivendor integrations for Open Fronthaul and Cloud RAN were reported to be underway within confidential development programs. The collaboration included advancement of O-RAN-aligned management capabilities through open O1 interfaces, expansion into configuration management and other functions to support long-term vendor-agnostic operations, and ongoing work to integrate with Deutsche Telekom’s in-house SMO platform.

Pallavi Mahajan, Chief Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer at Nokia, said, “AI‑native RAN represents a fundamental shift in how networks will be built and operated. Our expanded collaboration with Deutsche Telekom allows us to jointly accelerate this transformation, combining our technology leadership with their vision for truly open, software-driven mobile networks. Together, we are laying the foundation for highly automated, high-performance networks that can adapt instantly to user and service needs.”

The companies said the expanded partnership was designed to deliver a new generation of programmable and AI-powered mobile networks that were intended to be simpler to operate, faster to adapt and better optimized for future connectivity demands.