Nokia's Open Source Bet: A Strategic Pivot to Power AI's Future

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – December 08, 2025 – In a move that signals a significant strategic shift, Nokia has deepened its roots in the open-source community by becoming a Premier member of the Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) Foundation. While a membership upgrade might seem like procedural corporate news, it represents a calculated bet by the telecommunications giant on the future of data center infrastructure, a future increasingly defined by the voracious demands of artificial intelligence.

This isn't just about joining a club; it's about securing a seat at the table where the blueprints for the next generation of AI and cloud networking are being drawn. By elevating its status and placing R&D Lead Mirza Arifovic on the SONiC Governing Board, Nokia is positioning itself not as a gatekeeper of proprietary technology, but as a key enabler within a burgeoning open ecosystem. The move is a clear acknowledgment that in the AI era, the battle for the data center may not be won through closed systems, but through open collaboration.

The Open Source Gambit in the AI Gold Rush

The explosive growth of AI has fundamentally altered the requirements for data center networking. The massive, parallel processing required for training large language models and other AI workloads creates unprecedented traffic patterns that can choke traditional network architectures. This has ignited a gold rush for networking solutions that are not only faster but also more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective. For years, this market was dominated by proprietary network operating systems (NOS) from established players, creating a landscape of vendor lock-in.

SONiC, originally developed by Microsoft for its own Azure cloud and now thriving under the Linux Foundation, represents the industry's most potent answer to this challenge. Often called the "Linux of networking," SONiC decouples the network software from the underlying hardware, allowing companies to mix and match switches and optics from various vendors. This modularity is its superpower. Industry analysts project the market for SONiC-enabled switching to surpass $9 billion by 2028, capturing as much as 20% of the data center footprint in large enterprises and service providers.

Its adoption is no longer theoretical. Hyperscalers like Alibaba and Microsoft have long used it to manage their sprawling, multi-tenant data centers. More telling is its rapid uptake in dedicated AI environments. Japan's SAKURA internet, for example, built its 800-GPU cloud infrastructure on SONiC, landing it on the prestigious TOP500 list of supercomputers. This demonstrates that open source is not just a low-cost alternative but a high-performance one, capable of powering world-class AI workloads. This growing momentum is precisely what makes Nokia’s deepened commitment so timely and strategic.

Nokia's Evolution: From Telecom Giant to AI Infrastructure Catalyst

For many, Nokia remains synonymous with mobile phones and telecommunications infrastructure. However, the company has been quietly executing a long-term pivot, leveraging its two decades of experience in building resilient, carrier-grade IP networks to address the modern data center. Its involvement with SONiC is not a recent development but a five-year journey of sustained contribution. Since 2019, Nokia has ranked among the top five contributors to the project, delivering crucial innovations in areas like chassis-based implementations, ARM architecture enablement, and optimizations for smaller hardware footprints.

Upgrading to Premier membership is the formalization of this strategy. It is a public declaration that Nokia sees its future growth tied to the open, disaggregated model. "Joining the SONiC Foundation as a Premier member builds on this proven commitment, allowing us to accelerate open source collaboration and combine the community's efforts with our high-performance hardware and modern automation solutions to power the next generation of cloud and AI infrastructure," said Rudy Hoebeke, Vice President of Software Product Management for Nokia's IP Networks Business Division.

This strategy allows Nokia to play to its strengths. Instead of trying to build a closed, vertically integrated AI stack from scratch, it can focus on what it does best: engineering robust, high-performance hardware and sophisticated automation software, like its Event Driven Automation (EDA) platform. This platform is designed to manage complex, multivendor SONiC environments, promising to reduce human error and bring greater predictability to data center operations. In this model, Nokia isn't selling a lock; it's selling a better key for an open door.

Navigating a Crowded and Competitive Field

Nokia's open-source play places it in a fascinating position within the highly competitive AI networking landscape. The field is dominated by titans pursuing decidedly different strategies. NVIDIA, with its early lead in GPUs, has built a powerful, full-stack ecosystem with its proprietary InfiniBand and Spectrum-X Ethernet platforms, which many consider the gold standard for AI clusters. Meanwhile, established networking giants like Arista Networks and Cisco are pushing their own advanced—and largely proprietary—solutions like EOS and Silicon One, respectively, tailored for AI workloads.

Nokia’s strategy with SONiC is to flank these walled gardens. Rather than competing head-to-head on building a proprietary NOS, it is betting that a significant portion of the market—from hyperscalers and telecom operators to large enterprises—will prioritize the flexibility, cost control, and vendor neutrality of an open platform. By contributing expertise and leadership to SONiC, Nokia helps raise the tide for the entire open-source ecosystem, while positioning its own hardware and software as a best-in-class option within it.

This is a classic ecosystem play. The addition of Mirza Arifovic, a seasoned R&D leader with experience at Extreme Networks and Avaya, to the SONiC Governing Board places Nokia alongside representatives from Microsoft, Google, Arista, Broadcom, Dell, and Nvidia. This diverse board underscores the collaborative, and at times competitive, nature of the foundation. As Arpit Joshipura, general manager at the Linux Foundation, noted, "Nokia has played a critical role in advancing SONiC... Their leadership in high-performance hardware, expertise in software development and global-scale network engineering strengthens the community."

This collaborative approach is SONiC's core strength. By bringing together rivals and partners, the foundation accelerates innovation and ensures the platform meets the real-world needs of the entire industry, not just the strategic goals of a single vendor. For customers, this means more choice and less risk. For Nokia, it's a strategic pathway to becoming an indispensable partner in building the open infrastructure that will power the AI revolution.