Nokia and Japan’s KDDI announced plans to trial the vendor’s Liquid Cooling AirScale Baseband system, which they claim is the first trial of its kind in Japan. The trial will target substantial energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reductions related to cooling systems.

The technology works by capturing heat in liquid where it is generated before extracting it through liquid circulation. KDDI expects to yield a 70% reduction in baseband cooling system energy consumption compared to traditional gas coolant based air-cooling systems. An additional heat reuse option could increase that result to 80%.

The liquid cooling system “supports operators in their quest to be more environmentally responsible while allowing them to achieve significant cost savings," John Lancaster-Lennox, head of Nokia's business in Japan, said in a statement. The system also claims to be quieter and require less maintenance than air-cooling systems, which makes it well-suited for buildings with large numbers of tenants in densely populated areas.

KDDI also plans to run a trial of Nokia’s AVA for Energy Efficiency system, which uses artificial intelligence (AI), telecom expertise, and cloud-based delivery to reduce network energy consumption and cut energy bills by up to 20%. The system uses analytics to recommend and simulate changes to reduce energy use without impacting the user experience, according to Nokia.

The Finnish vendor last year began recalibrating emissions targets after making substantial progress on its original 2017 goal. Those original targets included a 75% reduction of CO2 emissions for products in use by 2030, and a 41% reduction in operational CO2 emissions.

Nokia has been providing KDDI with network equipment for more than 20 years, making it a primary 5G network equipment provider along with rivals Ericsson and Samsung.