Nokia and SoftBank to Validate AI-RAN in Japan's Commercial Networks Next Year

Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia and Japanese telecom operator SoftBank Group announced an agreement on October 20, 2026, to conduct field trials of AI Radio Access Network (AI-RAN) technology in Japan's existing commercial mobile networks next year. The core objective is to verify whether wireless signal transmission and artificial intelligence computing tasks can be processed simultaneously on the same infrastructure, leveraging NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform.

AI-RAN is viewed as a key architecture for next-generation communication networks, expanding the traditional role of base stations from mere connectivity to include edge computing capabilities. Under the agreement, SoftBank will use its proprietary AI-RAN platform 'AITRAS' to run Nokia's cloud-native RAN software 'anyRAN'. The AITRAS platform consists of GPU servers, virtualized infrastructure, and radio equipment, designed to accommodate software from different manufacturers and edge AI applications. Additionally, the two companies will integrate SoftBank's 'AITRAS Orchestrator' with Nokia's network management automation solution 'MantaRay' to test dynamic allocation of computing resources while maintaining communication quality and stability.

The hardware foundation for the trials includes NVIDIA Grace CPUs, RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell server GPUs, and ConnectX-8 networking technology, aimed at providing low-latency connections and high-performance computing support. SoftBank CTO Wakikawa Ryuji stated that this field trial is a crucial milestone in transitioning from concept to implementation, focusing on validating technologies for co-managing AI and RAN resources. Pallavi Mahajan, Nokia's Chief Technology and AI Officer, noted that AI-RAN has the potential to increase spectrum efficiency and provide distributed intelligence infrastructure supporting physical AI.