AI and automation redefine
the future of networks

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks, is leading the development of technologies that help transform the mobile industry and society. In this article, he shares his perspective on the critical role of AI and automation.

Trusted partnerships are the foundation of business and innovation, particularly in today’s shifting geopolitical landscape. Nokia is in a unique position in the industry as we provide our customers worldwide with a comprehensive portfolio covering all domains, from RAN and transport to Core, fixed, and optical networks.

In conversations with both operator and enterprise customers, we regularly address key trends that influence their investment priorities. We also discuss how we can best support the optimization of their networks and operational processes. Automation and AI play a key role here. In fact, we have taken the lead in developing an autonomous network vision that leverages advanced AI capabilities and enables end-to-end intelligence in network management and operations across all the network domains.

Let’s take a closer look at these topics and how we are redefining the future of wireless networks.

Network capacity on path to 6G

As Nokia Bell Labs estimates, global mobile traffic will continue to grow. In the coming years, we will see a massive surge in data traffic, mainly driven by AI, which will be integrated into many more applications and services. Already today, our customers have seen a visible impact from generative AI. More 5G investments are necessary to meet this growing demand for network capacity, and new upper mid-band spectrum will be essential for mobile operators to introduce 6G around 2030.

Recently, we conducted field tests with our long-term customer, Telia, to assess the potential of the upper 6 GHz spectrum to provide a capacity boost and good coverage by leveraging the existing 5G site grid. Our findings can provide valuable insights to global regulatory bodies, as they demonstrate that the upper 6 GHz band is a suitable and practical solution for initial 6G deployments. In fact, to facilitate the timely introduction of 6G, Nokia recommends allocating 200–400 MHz of bandwidth in the upper 6 GHz spectrum band for each mobile operator by 2030.

While operators are committed to investing in future technologies, they also need to be able to monetize those investments and ensure a sustainable total cost of ownership (TCO). Advanced 5G unlocks new opportunities with revenue-generating differentiated services. It also helps lower the production cost per gigabyte transmitted with enhanced network efficiency. AI and automation are critical for this development.

Third, enterprise adoption of 5G is accelerating as modern critical operations require highly resilient and secure high-performance connectivity with ultra-low latency. Today, Nokia has over 890 private wireless customers, and we continue to strengthen and diversify our business into different industrial and enterprise segments, including defense. 

Let me give you a concrete example of our technology leadership in private wireless: the recent contract with Maersk, a global leader in logistics and shipping. We replaced their legacy solution, enabling Maersk to monitor its customers’ cargo in real time, whether it's on ships, in ports, or transported over land.

As networks evolve, so too must the underlying intelligence that makes them more efficient and productive. This is not just about faster networks, it’s about smarter and more adaptive optimizations that support our customers’ business targets. Investments in autonomous networks are critical to enable the next level of transformation. 

At Nokia, our autonomous network vision covers the cross-domain network fabric, including business operations intelligence, service operations intelligence and domain intelligence. At Mobile Networks, we concentrate on the RAN domain in this holistic framework.

While some suppliers have just started introducing AI-enhanced automation solutions, we already provide modular building blocks that support Nokia’s vision. In fact, our market-leading products with deeply embedded AI/ML capabilities have been running in the large-scale networks of our major customers, optimizing multi-supplier environments since 2019. For example, our customer stc achieved outstanding results when using our AI-powered MantaRay AutoPilot to optimize its network for exceptionally high network traffic during the Hajj pilgrimage.

As we introduce the next chapter in automation, we offer a simple evolution path that provides investment protection to our customers. Our field-proven MantaRay product family has evolved into MantaRay SMO, the industry’s only service management and orchestration solution that can reach level 4 of TM Forum’s autonomous network framework already today. This is truly advanced automation built for advanced networks.

Nokia has long been an advocate of openness. We have made more contributions than any other company to the O-RAN Alliance and supported leading operators with their Open RAN deployments. A recent example is the Open RAN collaboration with our customer Deutsche Telekom. MantaRay SMO is yet another step in enabling true openness: It supports multi-supplier networks and O-RAN interfaces. In addition, we offer an application marketplace to foster collaboration and innovation with customers and application developers. 

For more details about our SMO and latest product innovations, watch the on-demand recording of Nokia Midsummer Launch 2025 and read this blog by Mark Atkinson, our Senior Vice President and Head of Radio Access Networks.

Operators and enterprises trust our technology leadership while also providing valuable feedback, which challenges us, inspires us, and ultimately accelerates our innovation engine. As a B2B technology innovation leader, we remain committed to helping our customers build a future-proof technology foundation for their business and capture new opportunities by harnessing the best that AI and automation can offer.

Tommi is the President of Mobile Networks at Nokia and also serves as the Country Senior Officer of Nokia Finland.

Tommi is passionate about developing, selling and building radio access networks and microwave radio links, and seeing his communication service provider (CSP) and enterprise customers with private/dedicated wireless networks thrive in delivering ever better services in mobile broadband and the Internet of Things. As the head of Nokia’s Mobile Networks business group since the end of 2018, Tommi is helping to shape the mobile industry and society by bringing 5G, artificial intelligence, machine learning, open RAN and cloud RAN to the market to fuel the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together.

As a B2B technology innovation leader, we are pioneering networks that sense, think, and act by leveraging our work across mobile, fixed and cloud networks. In addition, we create value with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs.

Service providers, enterprises and partners worldwide trust Nokia to deliver secure, reliable and sustainable networks today – and work with us to create the digital services and applications of the future.

Media inquiries

Nokia Communications, Corporate

Email: Press.Services@nokia.com
 

Follow us on social media

LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube