Nokia and Intel launch 5G acceleration labs in US and Finland

Nokia and Intel are opening two 5G solutions labs in the US and Finland to test and accelerate the commercial readiness of 5G  technology. 

The joint 5G acceleration labs, to be located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and in Espoo, Finland, will build on the companies' core competencies and technology strengths. The two labs will test and develop next-generation wireless solutions focused on all aspects of 5G, from the network and cloud to the client. 

The labs will work closely with communications service providers and other companies in the 5G ecosystem to support comprehensive integration and testing. 

The labs will start out encompassing LTE, 4.5G, 4.5G Pro and 4.9G technologies using essential building blocks such as the Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform. Usage of these technologies within the lab, as well as the collaborations that the lab will drive, will help communicatons service providers power next-generation networks and the 5G future.

Nokia and Intel - who have a long history of collaboration, including recent collaborations on Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT), data center and network infrastructure solutions and software platforms - will draw on their respective expertise and core technology strengths in the lab testing. 

Nokia will leverage its broad portfolio of commercially available platforms for radio access, mobile transport and cloud, as well as its leading edge research on Massive MIMO. Intel is supporting the lab tests with the latest Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform, mmWave research, NB-IoT, massive MIMO, small cells, network slicing, software-defined virtual RAN, Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) and cloud expertise.

Frank Weyerich, head, Mobile Networks, Nokia, said, "Nokia and Intel have a long history of creating essential development environments for new technologies. 5G has the potential to create an unprecedented breadth of commercial opportunities for new and even as-yet unidentified players, and our joint 5G Solutions Lab will provide them with an invaluable resource to develop and incubate new possibilities."

Sandra Rivera, vice president, Datacenter Group, General Manager, Network Platforms Group, Intel, said, "The networks of tomorrow must be powerful, agile, flexible and built upon open standards and virtualized infrastructure technology for delivery of intelligent edge services in the 5G era. The opening of these two labs expands our collaboration with Nokia and other ecosystem partners, allowing us to take another critical step to accelerate commercial 5G deployments."