Nokia launched a dedicated platform providing unified edge computing, mission-critical communications, and agentic AI tooling for industries like construction, public safety, and defense.

Dubbed Cognitive Operations (CO), the platform comes tailored for specific markets, with offerings for mining, emergency services, and defense highlighted in its formal reveal announcement.

The CO platform at its core is designed to boost site and asset intelligence for operational teams. It makes use of Nokia’s Cognitive Edge Node (CEN), a rugged platform that features embedded on-device graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated computing to boost connections.

The platform comes packaged with “agentic assistance,” a live 3D digital twin of operations, and real-time video analytics to provide improved visibility and reduced downtime for teams running mission-critical workloads.

CO also features what Nokia described as a “dynamic hybrid wireless network fabric” that boasts “no single point of access failure, helping keep mission-critical operations running in the toughest environments.”

The platform can be deployed either on-premises with local IT infrastructure or hosted on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Each CO iteration is tailored to their specific deployment parameters. The emergency services offering, for example, features a vehicle-as-a-node (VaaN) concept where a response vehicle equipped with the CEN can operate as a "distributed field intelligence network" at incident scenes.

Wireless edge network vendor Rajant also aided CO development, lending its InstaMesh technology – which can dynamically optimize performance as network characteristics change – directly into the Cognitive Edge Node.

“Our Cognitive Operations solution extends AI directly into the field, enabling real-time intelligence where physical operations happen,” Lelio Di Martino, GM of Cognitive Operations at Nokia. “Together with our partners Microsoft Azure and Rajant, we are building a future-ready system for autonomous mission-critical infrastructure, with public safety agencies, defense forces, and mining/construction companies leading the way.”

Nokia has form in several of CO’s target markets. Last September, for example, it teamed with Boldyn Networks to deploy a private 5G network in a copper mine-turned-equipment-testbed in Pyhäjärvi, Finland. Other related markets the Finnish firm has dabbled in in the past 12 months include 5G standalone network tests with Deutsche Bahn.

CO’s defense-related positioning comes as the vendor is expanding its footprint in the market. Nokia launched a dedicated unit providing defense-grade solutions in 2025, appointing Ari Kynaslahti as its first defense head. Nokia already boasts a sizable defense portfolio, owing to a long history in the space dating back to some of the first radio systems it ever built for the Finnish military as well as commercial use.