By 2035, Nokia projects that total network traffic will nearly quadruple from 2026 levels to almost 3,789 exabytes (EB) per month, with 44% of that traffic driven by AI. The increasing adoption of autonomous AI agents and connected machines will challenge networks built primarily for downloads, increasing demand for upload capacity and real-time responses. Physical AI applications, including robots and vehicles that interact with their surroundings, are projected to generate more than 90% of their traffic over the network uplink by 2035.

Starting from a small base, agentic AI traffic is projected to reach 160 times its 2026 levels in 2035, while physical AI traffic is expected to reach 105 times its 2026 level over the same period. These projected workloads will require networks that support differing needs, from bulk uploads to continuous, real-time connections.

The report also forecasts a shift in where AI data is processed by 2035. While most AI traffic is expected to remain within the central cloud, edge and metro core infrastructure is projected to serve 36% of all AI-native traffic by 2035 as agentic and physical AI applications rise in prominence. More efficient models, low-latency requirements and data sovereignty needs are expected to bring intelligence and inferencing closer to users and devices, supporting a more distributed infrastructure known as the AI grid.

Beyond AI, the report projects that fixed wireless access (FWA) will generate more than one-third of consumer cellular traffic by 2035 as connections and usage grow, expanding cellular networks’ role in home broadband alongside mobile services.

Nokia's Global Network Traffic Report (2026–2035) uses a bottom-up model of consumer, enterprise and AI traffic. It combines application usage, connected-device activity and agentic workflows with third-party research, expert review and Nokia lab testing and insights to assess traffic growth and characteristics, network distribution and potential uplink constraints.

Resources and additional information

Webpage: Nokia Global Network Traffic Report (2026-2035)

As modern networks generate increasingly complex volumes of data, telecom providers face significant bottlenecks. Traditional management relies on manual troubleshooting that struggles to keep up with escalating alerts, often resulting in costly downtime. This partnership addresses these challenges by using agents to instantly process raw data, helping telecom providers distinguish critical infrastructure issues from background noise to accelerate repairs and protect revenue.

A multi-agent ecosystem built for telecom scale

Nokia is introducing six specialized agents, each designed to manage specific operational tasks independently or work together to solve complex network problems, including:

• Router agent: Acts as the central orchestration layer by interpreting user intent and managing communication between other agents while ensuring compliance with operational guardrails.
• Event triage agent: Analyzes ongoing alarms and compares them against historical patterns to identify root causes and assess operational impact.
• KPI selector agent: Provides domain-expert interpretation of complex network performance metrics, definitions, and measurement units to aid reasoning.
• Anomaly reasoner agent: Investigates unusual network behavior to determine if a deviation is a genuine issue or a false alarm.
• Action reasoner agent: Matches active events against automation catalogs to recommend specific remediation steps.
• Dashboard agent: Enables teams to quickly generate visual analytics and tracking screens using natural language prompts.

Nokia developed these capabilities using Google Cloud's Agent Development Kit (ADK) on the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. This framework allowed Nokia to quickly develop smart conversational and routing paths that leverage Gemini's multimodal reasoning. Instead of requiring complex managed services, the entire multi-agent framework runs seamlessly on standard Google Cloud compute and storage. By deploying the agents directly via standard tools like Kubernetes and Google Cloud Storage, Nokia ensures the solution remains cost-optimized, flexible, and fully compatible with existing customer environments, including Google Cloud tenants.

Rather than removing operators from the loop, the framework introduces what Nokia calls "glass box autonomy." The action reasoner agent serves as an advisory layer, presenting confidence-based recommendations to human engineers, who retain final approval over critical control points before fixes are automatically executed and logged. For low-risk, policy-approved scenarios, the same architecture can also support completely closed-loop automation.

Business benefit for operators

By moving from passive monitoring to a proactive, agent-based architecture, telecom providers can save costs and improve reliability. These specialized agents can deliver immediate value, including:

• Rapid resolution: Agents can automate troubleshooting, cutting network problem-solving times by 50% to 80%. Complex issues that historically took hours to isolate—such as voice degradation or software errors—can now be flagged and resolved in minutes, drastically reducing service downtime.
• Enhanced accuracy: Agents can filter out data fluctuations to focus on genuine problems, reducing false alarms and unnecessary escalations.
• Accessible analytics: Staff can use simple language to instantly generate dashboards and performance reports.
• Cost efficiency: Agents efficiently run on top of a telecom operator's existing cloud setups, avoiding the need for expensive custom software overlays.

Availability

The router and event triage agents are already fully functional. When the platform officially launches as a SaaS model on the Google Cloud Marketplace in September 2026, operators will be able to deploy this initial starter pack of certified agents immediately to work with the Nokia Assurance Center. 

Instead of making customers wait for all agents to be finalized, Nokia will deliver the remaining, more complex agents through rolling software updates. These continuous releases will expand capabilities across Nokia's broader network portfolio—including Unified Inventory, Data Suite, and Orchestration applications—beginning in late 2026 and continuing throughout 2027.

Live demonstrations of these autonomous network agents will be on display at DTW Ignite in Copenhagen, from June 23-25. Attendees can view a live voice degradation use case at both the Google Cloud booth (#201) and the Nokia booth (#306), as well as a multi-partner fiber-break automation simulation featured in the Innovation Zone.

As IP networks grow in size and complexity with the rise of AI traffic, operators face increasing pressure to improve efficiency and reliability while maintaining full operational control. While AI has the potential to transform network operations, many operators have remained cautious due to concerns around explainability, trust, and risk in production environments. Nokia’s approach with NSP addresses these concerns by embedding agentic AI capabilities directly into the platform that already serves as the authoritative controller for IP networks.

NSP grounds AI agents in an accurate and continuously updated view of the network, including topology, protocol behaviour, configuration state, service relationships, and recent network changes. This enables AI agents to reason based on network truth, rather than inferred or fragmented data, and to operate within operator-defined intent, policies, and access controls. The NSP agent framework also allows for communication with external agents via AI-based protocols, such as Model-context protocol (MCP), across operators’ multi-vendor, multi-domain networks empowering them on their journey toward fully autonomous networks.

The first use case built on this new framework is an AI-driven Troubleshooting Agent, aimed at helping operators identify root causes faster, reduce operational noise, and resolve complex IP network issues with greater confidence. This marks a significant step in Nokia’s strategy to help operators adopt AI safely, incrementally, and at scale in live networks.

For network operators, the new agentic framework provides a flexible foundation to introduce multiple AI use cases over time without creating siloed solutions. Operators can start with focused, high-confidence scenarios and gradually expand the role of AI as trust builds, using a shared framework that enforces consistent governance and operational controls.

End-users also benefit from this evolution through faster fault resolution, improved service reliability, and reduced likelihood of prolonged or cascading outages—delivering better experiences without increasing operational risk.

This enhancement to NSP, which will be commercially available by the end of 2026, reinforces Nokia’s commitment to enabling trusted, AI‑native network operations, and to helping operators translate AI innovation into real, measurable operational outcomes.

Multimedia, technical information and related news

Webpage:       Nokia Network Services Platform

Blog:                Bringing trusted agentic AI into IP network operations

White paper:  Agentic AI transforms operations in IP networks

Related Article:DISG backs Singtel Singapore's multi-year AI transformation programme

Nokia today announced the launch of Nokia Deepfield Genome Shield, the industry’s first security automation system that facilitates proactive, always-on DDoS protection for telecommunications providers, hosting companies, internet exchange points, and cloud builders in the AI era. Genome Shield addresses the fundamental shift in DDoS threats driven by the emergence of residential proxy botnets, which now comprise approximately 200 million compromised devices worldwide.

The DDoS threat landscape has shifted over the past 12 months. Attacks now come from real subscriber devices, deliver multi‑terabit bursts that last seconds to minutes, and rapidly rotate IPs across thousands of nodes. Residential proxy botnets — estimated at 250–600 Tbps — are used to dynamically leverage large numbers of residential users, unaware that their connections are used to generate evasive attacks impacting many national networks. Traditional scrubber-based diversion and reactive mitigation can’t respond quickly enough to these sub‑minute attacks. Automated, AI-driven DDoS has industrialized the residential proxy supply chain used by botnets like Kimwolf, while AI-assisted code generation is accelerating the evolution of evasion techniques.

Nokia Deepfield Genome Shield introduces a new class of proactive, network-wide security automation that extends Deepfield Defender to address previously unaddressable use cases. The solution has been shaped through close engagement with customers and the wider security community as part of ongoing efforts to combat DDoS and botnet-driven threats. It shifts protection from reactive mitigation to proactive enforcement leveraging existing network infrastructure. Genome Shield aggregates continuously updated threat intelligence from multiple sources, including Nokia Deepfield Secure Genome® (spanning over five billion internet endpoints), GDTA telemetry, and Deepfield’s cyber range, where live malware and botnet command-and-control (C2s) generate real-time insights. All of this intelligence is further compiled in Deepfield Defender into automated DDoS policies and enforced as network-wide protection against modern cyberthreats, such as outbound DDoS.

Genome Shield extends Deepfield Defender's existing DDoS countermeasure portfolio with network-wide automated enforcement, organized across four pillars: Botnet C2 Disruption, which blocks command-and-control communications so attacks cannot be launched; DDoS Policers, which suppress amplification and volumetric traffic through proactive rate limiting; Custom Policies, enabling user-defined rules via open APIs for easy integration; and Observability, providing dashboards for compromised devices, botnet endpoints, and emerging security trends.

Genome Shield requires Nokia Deepfield Defender and is compatible with both router-based edge mitigation and with the Nokia 7750 Defender Mitigation System (DMS) for dedicated L4-L7 DDoS scrubbing. It supports on-premises, cloud-based (SaaS), and hybrid deployment models with flexible pay-as-you-grow licensing.

Initial capabilities of Genome Shield have already been introduced within Nokia Deepfield Defender and are in use by customers today. Additional features will be rolled out throughout 2026. 

Multimedia, technical information and related news

Webpage:        Nokia Deepfield Defender

Webpage:        Nokia Deepfield Genome

Webpage:        The new DDoS threat landscape

Datasheet:      Nokia Deepfield Genome Shield datasheet

Webpage:       Nokia Deepfield Genome Shield

Blog:                Herd immunity for the internet (by Jérôme Meyer)

Webpage:        Nokia 7750 Defender Mitigation System

Webpage:        Nokia FP Network Processor Technology

Webpage:        Nokia DDoS Security

Webpage:        Nokia Deepfield Global DDoS Threat Alliance (GDTA)

The telecom industry is set to invest $6.2 billion in agentic AI by 2030. Agentic AI systems capable of autonomous reasoning and decision-making will be a key driver of the cognitive broadband era, enabling networks to move beyond basic connectivity toward self-optimizing, AI-driven infrastructures.

Nokia embeds AI agents and natural language interaction across its Altiplano, Corteca, and Broadband Easy platforms, enabling telecom providers to modernize operations and reduce costs. Operators can resolve problems proactively, scale operations without adding headcount, and diagnose network issues using automated root cause analysis. The AI agents will make an immediate and tangible difference for operators, including lifting first-contact helpdesk resolution rates above 50%, network incident qualification within 5 minutes, and a 50% reduction in return visits to construction sites and connected homes.

Underpinning this is an open and secure approach that integrates AI agents, live data, and external services while ensuring compliance, data sovereignty, and vendor independence. Operators retain full control and can work with an LLM that best fits the specific use case, use their own interfaces, or connect data sources as they scale AI across their business.

Nokia's new AI capabilities span the full broadband network lifecycle. They increase productivity across customer care, network engineering & operations and field force teams, while boosting end-user experience:

• An AI assistant with a conversational interface gives technicians and support teams instant access to product knowledge, accelerating training and day-to-day problem solving.
• AI-powered text, voice, and image guidance assists field technicians during surveys and installations, and computer vision technology helps validate the quality of work done and build a live digital twin of the FTTH network.
• Automated diagnostics detect degradations and prevent outages; giving frontline support teams more operational precision and analytical depth.
• A troubleshooting agent improves root cause analysis and speeds up remediation across home and access networks, and uses advanced reasoning to pinpoint faults faster, reduce ticket volume, and increase first-call resolution rates.

Resources and additional information:

Product Page: Fixed Networks Cognitive Broadband

The annual GigaOm Radar evaluates leading data center switching solutions based on technical capabilities, product roadmaps and business criteria. In the 2026 report, Nokia’s Data Center Fabric solution is positioned in the Innovation/Platform Play quadrant and classified as an Outperformer due to strong feature delivery and high scores across key and emerging capabilities.

GigaOm assessed ten leading vendors in the data center switching market and evaluated their offers against a set of core technical and operational criteria. Nokia’s Data Center Fabric received the highest possible five-star ratings across all key feature categories evaluated in the report, including hardware portfolio, switching and routing features, day 0, day 1 and day 2+ operations and management, NetDevOps suitability and traffic security. The report also recognized Nokia’s strengths in emerging capabilities such as AI-specific networking features and its microservices-based network operating system architecture.

The recognition also highlights Nokia’s expanding role in the data center ecosystem as enterprises, cloud providers and telecommunications providers modernize their infrastructure to support increasingly data-intensive applications and distributed cloud architectures.

For customers, this recognition reinforces Nokia’s focus on simplifying operations and improving reliability through its Human Error Zero strategy, which aims to eliminate both software defects and configuration errors that can impact data center networks.

Nokia’s Data Center Fabric combines high-capacity switching platforms, the SR Linux network operating system and the Event-Driven Automation (EDA) platform to deliver programmable, highly automated data center networks. The solution is designed to support both greenfield and brownfield deployments and integrates easily into heterogeneous environments, enabling enterprises, cloud providers, colocation operators and service providers to evolve their data center infrastructure while maintaining the simplicity of their operations.

Multimedia, technical information and related news

Report: GigaOm’s 2026 Radar Report for Data Center Switching

Product Page: Nokia Data Center Fabric

Product Page: Nokia Event-Driven Automation

Web Page: Nokia Data Center Networks

Deutsche Telekom, Globe, Orange, Rakuten, Tata Communications, Telefónica, TELUS, and Vodafone are among more than 75 partners — including telecom providers, CPaaS platforms, systems integrators and vertical independent software vendors — now collaborating with Nokia in the field of network APIs, either through new or expanded partnerships.  

Nokia’s Network as Code platform gives developers standardized, secure access to APIs that simplify complex network functions, opening new pathways for innovation. Industries such as banking, healthcare, automotive and entertainment have developed early use cases, with more on the horizon as awareness grows around this technology’s transformative potential. Launched in September 2023, Network as Code aligns with API-based industry initiatives like GSMA Open Gateway and the Linux Foundation’s CAMARA project.

Partner details

Deutsche Telekom: Deutsche Telekom is enabling Blocksport — a technology platform provider that builds digital infrastructure for sports clubs, leagues, and venues — to deliver seamless, mobile-based authentication for its customer SuperApps by leveraging the number verification API deployed via Nokia’s Network as Code platform on Deutsche Telekom’s network. This pioneering integration uses direct network capabilities to replace traditional one-time passwords (OTPs), streamlining log-in flows and elevating the fan experience with faster, frictionless, and more secure authentication.

Globe: Globe, a leading digital platform in the Philippines, will gain access to the full portfolio of APIs available through Nokia’s Network Exposure Platform (NEP), a cloud-native, programmable infrastructure that streamlines API service delivery and fosters interoperability across various network environments. Over the past year, Globe used NEP to enable creation of security-focused applications that combat mobile banking fraud. Now, as several banks in the Philippines plan to adopt Silent Network Authentication (number verification API) — part of G Verify, Globe’s portfolio of network-powered security solutions — Nokia and Globe are building on that momentum to create similar opportunities for industries across the entire API ecosystem. Read more.

Google Cloud: Communications networks are undergoing a major transformation as AI becomes integral both to how networks operate and how AI workloads depend on them. After launching three of Nokia’s network APIs on Google Marketplace in July 2025, Nokia and Google Cloud have partnered to bring Google Cloud’s agentic AI capabilities into Nokia’s Network as Code platform. This makes networks consumable and programmable by enterprise agents, with no coding or integration required. Network as Code agents connect to network APIs via Model Context Protocol (MCP) using Google Cloud’s Agent Developer Kit (ADK) and Google’s Gemini models to create intent-based, on-demand workflows that solve network problems for external agents or applications. Early use cases have focused on the areas of enterprise device management (connectivity, location, roaming, SIM swap); fleet management (coverage, quality, priority) and security monitoring (high-precision multi-modal inference utilizing network slicing and edge routing). Read more.

Orange: Orange, one of the world’s leading telecommunication providers, and Nokia have signed a framework contract making Orange’s network APIs commercially available through Nokia’s Network as Code platform. Orange APIs currently available through the NaC platform include identity and antifraud APIs and network insights in France and Spain.

Rakuten Mobile: Rakuten Mobile, the world’s first fully virtualized, cloud-native Open RAN (radio access network) 4G and 5G network operator, is exploring how Nokia’s number verification API can provide enterprise partners with advanced fraud prevention, eliminating the need for traditional one-time passwords. The collaboration with Nokia will enable Rakuten Mobile’s partners to strengthen digital security while streamlining network-based authentication for numerous end users. 

Tata Communications, a leading global communications technology player, has signed a collaboration agreement with Nokia to integrate its global Network Fabric and Tata Communications MOVE™ advanced eSIM capabilities into Nokia’s Network as Code platform. This collaboration will expand programmable connectivity capabilities for developers and enterprises, enabling scalable deployment of network APIs for IoT use cases across automotive, logistics, and adjacent sectors, with the objective to accelerate market entry for programmable network services.

Telefónica Group: Telefónica, a multinational telecommunications company based in Madrid, and Nokia are testing two emerging AI protocols — Agent to Agent (A2A) and Model Context Protocol (MCP) — to simplify how network capabilities are exposed and consumed. The A2A protocol allows AI agents to dynamically discover, communicate and collaborate, while MCP standardizes secure access to external tools and data. Together, they show how AI can transform networks, enable new monetization models, and simplify service creation for partners and developers. Read more.

TELUS: TELUS and Nokia have agreed to collaborate on network APIs through Nokia’s Network as Code platform and deployment of Nokia’s Network Exposure Platform. The initial focus will include deployment of three network APIs: number verification, SIM swap, and quality on demand, preparing for differentiated, on-demand customer experiences during the world’s largest football tournament, held this summer at various sites across North America.

Vodafone Group: Vodafone has implemented commercial agreements for Nokia to offer Vodafone APIs via the Network as Code platform for its operating companies in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Greece. The project will start with anti-fraud and identity APIs to enable secure digital experiences in online banking, e-commerce, and digital media. Vodafone and Nokia will collaborate to accelerate adoption among developers, enterprises, and public sector organizations in Europe. Read more. 

Network as Code at MWC Barcelona

• Media and attendees can view in-depth demonstrations on how agentic AI is powering network APIs at Nokia’s booth stand in Hall 3. Theater sessions with Google Cloud, Telefónica, and Blocksport will also take place at various times at the Nokia booth.
• Nokia’s Network as Code platform takes center stage at the GSMA Open Gateway Hackathon, where winners will be announced at the DevCon event hosted at the Talent Arena.
• Network as Code powers a live tele-driving demonstration on the GSMA booth in Hall 6, where visitors can remotely drive a real car on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya track.
• Shkumbin Hamiti, Nokia’s Vice President and Head of Network Monetization Platform, Mobile Infrastructure, will speak on “AI at the Gateway: Where Networks Learn to Earn,” March 3, 1:15 p.m., Hall 6, Marconi Stage.

Multimedia, technical information and related news

Product Page: Network as Code

Product Page: Network Exposure Platform