Nokia has announced a series of new strategic partnerships with the three leading cloud providers—Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure—aimed at accelerating 4G and 5G deployments and enabling cloud-native, edge-driven services for communications service providers (CSPs).
The collaboration with Google Cloud centers on developing edge-based 5G solutions that combine Nokia’s Radio Access Network (RAN) portfolio—including Open RAN and Cloud RAN—with Google’s edge computing platform. Together they will explore new ways CSPs can monetise 5G services by deploying network functions closer to users and enterprise sites.
Bikash Koley, VP, Google Global Network and Head of Technology for Telecom Products at Google Cloud, said:
“This partnership with Nokia will combine both of our decades of mobile communications expertise to deliver new solutions that help CSPs enable business transformation at the network edge.”
Operators welcomed the announcement. Alex Choi, SVP of Strategy and Technology Innovation at Deutsche Telekom, noted the importance of open, cloud-native infrastructure:
“Deutsche Telekom is on a journey to transform to a new open, disaggregated and cloud-native infrastructure with an automated production model. We are therefore excited to see two innovative organisations like Nokia and Google Cloud joining forces to accelerate ecosystem innovation across critical areas like Open RAN and virtual RAN and the cloud-native 5G Core.”
Initial work between Nokia and Google Cloud will focus on Cloud RAN integration—specifically combining Nokia’s 5G vDU (virtualised distributed unit) and 5G vCU (virtualised centralised unit) with Google’s edge platform running on Anthos. The partners will also test Nokia’s standalone 5G network with vCU and 5G Core as a cloud-native deployment on Anthos.
Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, added:
“We are excited to develop new 5G solutions at the network edge with Google Cloud. Our service provider customers will benefit greatly from this collaboration with more choice and flexibility to efficiently deploy and orchestrate 5G networks. This will ultimately help our customers deliver 5G services on the network edge providing multiple options of cloud-based solutions paving the way forward.”
Nokia’s partnership with AWS seeks to extend the reach of Nokia’s Cloud RAN and Open RAN solutions by integrating them with AWS infrastructure to accelerate customer-focused 5G rollouts. Engineering teams from both companies will work together at Nokia facilities to develop proofs-of-concept and validate how Nokia’s RAN, Open RAN, Cloud RAN and edge solutions operate with AWS Outposts and other AWS edge offerings.
Dave Brown, Vice President of Amazon EC2 at AWS, said:
“This collaboration with Nokia will extend the reach of our industry-leading cloud technology to support our telco and enterprise customers. We look forward to working closely on this collaboration and offer multiple deployment choices for customers to build 5G Cloud RAN and Open RAN solutions. Our customers will benefit from different options to run 5G RAN using AWS Outposts with either Intel or ARM-based CPU choices, or third-party bare metal servers while using Amazon EKS and EKS Anywhere. This will solve the challenge of CI/CD, automation, and network orchestration by using a common framework of tools across Core and RAN.”
Nokia and AWS will concentrate on three practical areas:
- Onboarding and validating Nokia’s 5G vDU (virtualised distributed unit) on AWS Outposts using Amazon EKS for far-edge cloud or on-premises deployments.
- Implementing Nokia’s 5G vCU (virtualised centralised unit) with AWS Outposts and AWS Local Zones, using Amazon EKS as a cloud-native deployment option.
- Building an end-to-end proof-of-concept that runs Nokia’s 5G Cloud RAN and 5G standalone Core network on AWS.
The collaboration with Microsoft Azure focuses on enabling end-user and enterprise 5G use cases by combining Nokia’s Cloud RAN and Open RAN capabilities with Azure’s global cloud and edge infrastructure. Nokia framed this partnership as part of its broader effort to help businesses monetise 4G and 5G investments by working with leading public cloud providers.
“Open collaboration is key to the development of new and innovative high value 5G use cases that will equip our customers with the tools they need for digital transformation,” Uitto said. “This is part of Nokia’s continued commitment to leading an open mobile future, making it simple for our customers to take advantage of the 5G world helping to drive it forward.”
Nokia and Azure outlined three main stages for their work together:
- Combine Nokia’s mobile network solutions—including Cloud RAN, Open RAN, Radio Access Controller (RIC), and multi-access edge cloud (MEC)—with Azure Private Edge Zone to process data close to end users and deliver ultra-low latency.
- Integrate 5G RAN with Azure 4G/5G Core to demonstrate interworking needed for enterprise use cases demanded by Microsoft’s customers.
- Explore integrating Nokia’s AirFrame open edge servers into Microsoft’s telco edge strategy to create additional deployment options for operators and enterprises.
Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President of Azure for Operators at Microsoft, commented:
“Microsoft believes in the importance of an open and interoperable ecosystem of solutions on the Azure carrier-grade platform. Our collaboration with Nokia across multiple potential use cases, based on specific customer demand, will provide operators with choices on how the best adopt cloud technology in concert with their 5G updates to drive new revenue streams, reduce cost, and future-proof their network investment.”
By partnering with all three major cloud providers, Nokia is creating multiple paths for operators to deploy and monetise 4G and 5G networks with cloud-native, edge-capable architectures. These collaborations are designed to offer CSPs choice and flexibility across deployment models—public cloud, dedicated edge, and on-premises—while streamlining automation, orchestration, and continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) across Core and RAN domains.
(Photo by Marc Wieland on Unsplash)
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