Nokia and Taiwan Mobile extend 5G deal to build AI-native networks
Nokia has signed a 5G expansion agreement with Taiwan Mobile, extending an existing partnership to accelerate the shift toward AI-native mobile network architecture across Taiwan. Under the deal, Nokia will deploy its AirScale portfolio, encompassing next-generation baseband and radio solutions, alongside AI-driven software products designed to lift performance, automate operations and reduce energy consumption.
The agreement covers four capability areas Nokia frames as a coherent AI-across-the-network strategy. On the intelligence side, Nokia will introduce its Predictive Hardware Analytics service and MantaRay SON, a self-organising network product that uses AI algorithms to automate operations and enable closed-loop network assurance. Separately, updated baseband and radio hardware is intended to raise uplink capacity and throughput to handle the heavier traffic loads generated by AI applications on end-user devices.
What the deal covers
Energy management is addressed through AI-powered algorithms that Nokia says will enable traffic-aware power savings, supporting Taiwan Mobile's stated ESG targets. A fourth pillar covers network resilience: AI-enabled self-healing and traffic-steering capabilities are intended to allow the network to adapt dynamically to disruptions, including what Nokia describes as "extreme scenarios," though no further specification was provided.
The partnership also includes preparatory work for 5G-Advanced features, including network slicing and RedCap, a lightweight 5G standard aimed at IoT and wearable device categories. Nokia's Mark Atkinson, Head of RAN, said the deployment "sets the foundation for 5G-Advanced and beyond," positioning the upgrade as a multi-year infrastructure investment rather than a single refresh cycle.
Taiwan Mobile president Jamie Lin said AI integration across the network is central to the operator's broader strategy to grow what it calls its "Telco+Tech" business lines, framing the Nokia partnership as a key enabler of service monetisation and operational efficiency.
Market and competitive context
The Nokia-Taiwan Mobile renewal sits within a broader competitive dynamic in RAN and AI-RAN, where Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung are all positioning AI-embedded network software as a differentiator over commodity open-RAN deployments. Huawei remains the dominant RAN supplier in parts of Asia Pacific, though Taiwan's operators have largely maintained Western-vendor stacks for geopolitical and supply-chain reasons, a posture likely reinforced by ongoing US export-control and semiconductor restrictions affecting Chinese network equipment.
AI-RAN, the integration of AI inference workloads into radio access hardware, is an emerging category attracting significant investment. NVIDIA has pursued partnerships with several operators and vendors in this space, and the GSMA has begun standardisation work around AI-native network functions. Nokia's framing of the Taiwan Mobile deal as an AI-RAN reference deployment suggests the company intends it to serve a marketing function alongside its commercial one.
On the sustainability dimension, the EU's Energy Efficiency Directive and equivalent pressures in APAC are pushing operators to demonstrate measurable reductions in per-bit energy consumption. Nokia has made energy efficiency a recurring sales argument across its RAN refresh pipeline, though independently audited figures were not included in this release.
No contract value, duration or specific performance benchmarks were disclosed in the announcement. The absence of quantified targets for energy savings or throughput improvements limits external validation of the claims made.