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Nokia is building Competitive Edge for sustainable future networks

May 11, 2022

Nokia is set to gain a new competitive advantage from edge computing and edge intelligence, both considered essential elements in 5G networks. They can be considered the two key elements to enable sustainable digital infrastructure and networks in the future. Spinverse supported Nokia in the preparation of their funding proposal, which secured Nokia 20 M€ in Business Finland funding for leading companies.

As modern networks evolve, the increased data transfer and energy consumption pose major challenges, which Nokia is set to address in their leading-company project. Creation of data and its replication globally is estimated to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23% over the forecast period of 2020-2025. At the same time, it is expected that the estimated growth of data increases energy consumption on data management and transport, translating to an annual production of 50 nuclear power plants. Utilisation of edge computing and, for example, optimisation of workloads can significantly reduce energy consumption related to data transport.

The three-year Competitive Edge program will be built on the following three pillars:

Sustainability and competitiveness
Network scalability and operability
Solution focus and ecosystem initiatives.

In addition to Nokia’s internally focused R&D&I activities, the connected ecosystem projects will bring together a large number of companies. They will co-create new innovative solutions to harness edge computing and edge intelligence by introducing new sustainable solutions for the 5G networks. According to Nokia’s Program Director Jarkko Pellikka, Finland has strong expertise in many fields of ICT, sustainability, energy efficiency and digital solutions. Nokia has a strong ambition to create a vibrant ecosystem in Finland on edge capabilities that enable strong global growth for companies and increase investments in Finland, thus contributing to the target of 4 % growth in GDP. Business Finland will support the program with 70 M€ funding. Program related projects will include over 100 partners leading to estimated ecosystem R&D investment increase of over 300 M€ during the program.

Spinverse has been supporting the program planning and securing the funding. Now, after a successful launch of the program, Spinverse has been supporting especially in building the European projects, where the aim is to leverage and extend the ecosystem collaboration to the EU level.

As regards the role of Spinverse experts in supporting Nokia with their funding proposal, Pellikka says: "The collaboration with Spinverse has been easy. The close collaboration from past has helped us to work together in a committed and focused manner. Spinverse has helped especially in providing the external view for Nokia with their understanding and insights on the Finnish and European innovation funding.”

Senior Project Manager Pekka Torvinen from Spinverse sums up: “This is already our second successful leading-company program preparation with Nokia. It has been great to work with Nokia in these two future-looking large programmes, which will undoubtedly make a strong impact on Finnish economy and on building even stronger industrial ecosystems relying on the European strengths in information and communication technologies.”