Nokia has revealed plans to launch an Open Innovation lab in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. The new lab will be located in Dubai, UAE, and will help to drive regional innovation and accelerate the adoption of new technologies such as AI/ML for network automation and optimization in the region.
The initiative will also increase the regional focus of Nokia’s established global strategic collaborations with Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
“We are excited to launch our Open Innovation Lab in MEA, reaffirming our commitment to drive innovation with our partners in key future technology areas, including Dell and HPE. ‘’ Mikko Lavanti, Senior Vice President, Mobile Networks at Nokia, MEA, said.
‘’This collaboration will accelerate the adoption of new technologies in our region. We can help both operators and enterprises enhance network efficiency and performance as well as unlock new monetization opportunities,” he added.
The lab will focus on three important areas that will benefit operators and enterprises. The first area aims to drive further innovation in the Cloud RAN space with Nokia’s technology partners, such as Dell and HPE, as well as working with market-leading hyperscalers and other ecosystem players. The Nokia anyRAN approach helps evolve Cloud RAN towards a solution, which will work alongside purpose-built RAN with feature performance consistency. This approach brings the flexibility of choice of technology suppliers and operating environments, meeting the expectations of operators and enterprises for openness and efficiency.
Nokia says the second area of focus will be on private wireless and industrial networks. The lab will showcase innovative Industry 4.0 use cases and industrial edge applications on Nokia’s market-leading MX Industrial Edge (MXIE) platform to help enterprises accelerate their transition to Industry 4.0 in the region.
The third area of focus will be on network intelligence. Nokia aims to accelerate the adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning solutions for network automation and optimization. The Nokia MantaRay solution portfolio for intelligent network management and automation will be showcased and used in this lab.
