Nokia risks becoming a low-value connectivity supplier unless it secures a role in the AI and edge computing layer that will define Africa’s next telecom phase. The company is moving fast to convert decades of hardware sales into software and recurring revenue through AI-native networks, automation and edge compute, even as much of the continent still lacks reliable connectivity.
The African telecom market, currently valued at $66 billion and forecast to reach $90.3 billion by 2030, is drawing deep investment from global cloud and tech firms that are building subsea cables, cloud infrastructure and AI stacks. That shift shifts control toward companies that combine compute and software with network access, and Nokia wants to capture a slice of the higher-margin services that follow basic connectivity.
Nokia’s strategy centres on its AI Radio Access Network platform, which the company launched commercially on July 15, 2026. The platform layers GPU-based computing alongside existing radio systems to run AI workloads such as inference and training at the network edge. Nokia pairs its anyRAN software with NVIDIA’s Aerial software and GPU hardware, and it pitches tools such as AVA Autonomous Operations and Network as Code to turn one-off hardware contracts into recurring software income.
Danial Mausoof, Nokia’s vice president of Mobile Infrastructure for the Middle East and Africa, argued the region still has a long way to go on basic access. “Africa remains highly unconnected right now,” he said in an interview on August 25. “We’re invested. We’re fully committed to Africa.” Nokia says it works with major operator groups, including Airtel, Orange, Vodacom, Safaricom and Maroc Telecom, and maintains 5G deployments in markets such as Angola, South Africa and Ethiopia.
Not everyone is convinced Nokia can defend a premium position. Adedeji Olowe, CEO of Lendsqr, said, “I don’t think they have a chance, but then I could be wrong.” He added that other players are further along and pointed to vertically integrated rivals. Emmanuel Ezenwere, CEO of Arone Technologies, said, “Nokia doesn’t have its own chip,” a vulnerability given how much value is shifting into compute, interconnects and proprietary stacks.
Nokia’s reliance on NVIDIA gives it access to advanced AI compute without developing accelerators in-house, but it also risks making that capability available to competitors. Huawei, which leads parts of the RAN market along with Ericsson, pursues deeper vertical integration with its Ascend processors and wider technology stack. Nokia already ranks behind Huawei and Ericsson in RAN revenue, which compounds the pressure to prove that an open, merchant-compute model can match or beat integrated approaches on performance, power and cost.
The next test for Nokia will be turning operator relationships into defensible, recurring revenue while demonstrating that its AI-RAN architecture delivers measurable gains at scale. If it fails, Nokia could be confined to a crowded, price-sensitive hardware market. If it succeeds, it can reposition network infrastructure as a platform for higher-value AI services across Africa.
