Nokia is set to invest $4 billion to build out its R&D and manufacturing capabilities in the U.S.

The proposed investment, which will be spread across “multiple years,” will see some $3.5 billion go toward R&D efforts across mobile, optical, and data center networking technologies. A further $500 million will be used to invest in manufacturing at sites including Texas, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Nokia CEO Justin Hotard said the investment will “strengthen the [U.S.]’s capacity to deliver greater security, productivity, and prosperity through AI-optimized connectivity at scale, while advancing the newest research and innovation that will shape the future of networking for the years to come.”

Since taking office in 2024, one of the core Trump administration efforts has been to encourage companies to produce goods in the U.S. The likes of Apple, TSMC, and Nvidia have all made pledges to shift production stateside, with the perpetual threat of tariffs acting as an effective motivator.

“Nokia’s $4 billion investment is another Trump administration win for America,” Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said.. “Their investment in manufacturing, packaging, and R&D for optical chips means the most innovative technologies that power AI, data centers, and critical national security applications will be developed and built here in the U.S.”

Prior to its latest pledge, Nokia had already made strides to build out its U.S. efforts, notably spending $2.3 billion to acquire networking firm Infinera.

Before that acquisition, Infinera planned on investing some $456 million to create U.S. manufacturing facilities, with some $93 million from CHIPS Act incentives added to support its efforts.

The plans include the creation of a fab in San Jose, California, and a new advanced test and packaging facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – efforts the Infinera claimed will boost its domestic manufacturing capacity by an estimated factor of 10.

On the R&D side, Nokia is already building a new home for its Bell Labs arm. Having spent the past 80 years at the legendary Murray Hill campus, Bell Labs will move to a more modern facility in New Brunswick.

Set to open in 2028, the 370,000-square-foot building will house some 1,000 staff who will work on future technology solutions spanning semiconductors, optics, and quantum computing.

Nokia under the previous Biden administration made a similar U.S. manufacturing push by striking a deal with California-based Fabrinet to construct optical networking equipment and putting together an easy-to-purchase "network-in-a-box" package of networking equipment that complies with the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

This was followed by a new “framework agreement” with the Export-Import Bank of the United States to provide financing to Nokia’s partners. The bank in an independent Executive Branch agency that acts as the official export credit agency for the U.S. in facilitating the export of U.S. goods and services.

The agreement with Nokia calls for the bank to support Nokia as part of the bank’s Transformational Export Program, which has a China-focused component designed to help U.S. exporters facing competition from the People’s Republic of China.