Nokia launched an AI networking lab with an array of storage and compute partners including AMD, Everpure, Keysight Technologies, and Viavi Solutions.

Located within its Sunnyvale, California facility, Nokia's AI Networking Innovation Lab was described as driving co-innovation with AI and neocloud partners to accelerate next-generation networking technologies for AI infrastructure.

Nokia said the venture would tackle "pioneering" approaches to new protocols, switching silicon, congestion control, real-time telemetry, and network automation. The lab is also the testing ground for Nokia Validated Designs (NVDs), with customers and partners testing multivendor data center architectures against authentic AI training and inference scenarios.

The Finnish giant pointed to the diversity of its partners on the venture, foregoing telecom to work with silicon and graphic processing unit (GPU) vendors like AMD; system players in the form of Supermicro and Lenovo; test vendors such as Viavi and Keysight; storage names Everpure and Weka; and Nscale representing the neocloud front.

"AMD believes customer collaboration and an open ecosystem are fundamental to accelerating AI innovation," Travis Karr, corporate VP for high-performance computing (HPC) and sovereign AI at AMD, noted in a statement. "An open, standards-driven approach empowers customers to integrate seamlessly across heterogeneous environments, avoiding lock-in and fostering industry-wide advancement in AI."

"The launch of Nokia’s AI Networking Innovation Lab marks a major milestone in our commitment to drive the next era of AI-native connectivity," Rudy Hoebeke, VP of software product management at Nokia, added. "As the industry continues to evolve with solutions like scale-across and AI grid, this lab is poised to accelerate AI networking technology that will not only support but optimize these emerging industry offerings. This center gives our customers and partners early access to new technologies, deeper collaboration with the world’s leading AI ecosystem players, and the confidence that their networks are validated under more realistic AI conditions."