How is Nokia Advancing AI Data Centre Networking & Capacity?

Nokia has expanded its data centre networking portfolio to address the rising performance and scalability needs of AI-driven workloads.

The company introduced its 7220 Interconnect Router (IXR) series of high-performance data centre switches, along with new AI-enhanced automation capabilities for its Event-Driven Automation (EDA) platform.

These enhancements aim to support data centres in handling the immense data throughput demanded by AI training and inference, while boosting operational efficiency and uptime through intelligent automation.

Scaling for AI-driven performance

The accelerating adoption of agentic AI applications is driving demand for high-capacity networking infrastructure designed to support increasingly complex workloads.

Nokia’s 7220 IXR-H6 switches deliver up to 102.4 Tb/s of throughput with interface speeds reaching 800 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) and 1.6 Terabit Ethernet (TE), doubling both throughput and interface performance over previous models.

The switches adhere to Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) specifications, offering advanced congestion management and packet flow optimisation for large-scale AI data centres, including emerging AI factories capable of scaling beyond one million XPUs.

Nokia’s newest switches also provide deployment flexibility with both liquid-cooled and air-cooled options, supporting a range of rack configurations to enable seamless integration across diverse data centre environments.

As interoperability becomes increasingly important, Nokia stands out as the only vendor delivering switches compatible with both its SR Linux Network Operating System (NOS) and the open-source Community SONiC – offering data centre operators enhanced flexibility and confidence in aligning their software with infrastructure requirements.

“Our partnership with Nokia continues to deliver meaningful operating advantages amid the accelerating pace of AI innovation,” says Tom Burke, Chief Revenue Officer at Nscale. 

“With Nokia’s technology, Nscale strengthens its ability to deliver for our shared customers. This announcement further extends Nokia’s leadership, and reinforces our confidence that, together, we’re best serving the needs of customers who rely on advanced AI technology.”

Enhancing automation and reliability

As data centre environments become increasingly complex, automation and AIOps are central to maintaining performance and resilience.

Nokia’s enhanced EDA platform introduces agentic AI capabilities that combine natural language processing with reasoning tools to identify and resolve issues more efficiently.

EDA AIOps enables fast and accurate detection, root cause analysis and remediation across network operations.

When combined with real-time telemetry, integrated digital twins, dry-run testing and instant roll-back features, the system allows operators to act confidently and minimise service disruption.

According to Bell Labs Consulting and Futurum’s Data Centre Fabric Reliability Study, organisations using Nokia’s EDA AIOps can achieve up to a 96% reduction in data centre network downtime.

“The 1.6 TE interface speeds on Nokia’s new family of 7220 IXR switches hit a sweet spot in the market as agentic AI compels a change in data centre networking requirements,” explains Alan Weckel, Founder and Technology Analyst at 650 Group. 

“Agentic AI-powered AIOps on Nokia’s EDA platform is timely, driving increased operational efficiency and reliability in a demanding network environment. Also great to see Nokia’s commitment to the UEC as 650 Group analysis projects Ethernet will be the dominant networking protocol for AI moving forward.”

Preparing for the AI super-cycle

As AI adoption accelerates, the demand on data centre infrastructure to deliver higher performance with minimal downtime intensifies.

Nokia’s emphasis on scalability, openness and automation addresses the evolving requirements of cloud and enterprise customers deploying increasingly complex AI systems, ensuring networks remain agile and resilient to meet these dynamic workloads.

Vach Kompella, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Nokia’s IP Networks business, says: “The astonishing growth in AI adoption has led to a dramatic overhaul in how data centres operate, and is driving constant evolution in hardware and operational tools. 

“We are pleased to announce our new family of high-performance 7220 IXR-H6 switches along with advances in our EDA platform, which now leverages the sophistication of agentic AI to drive highly reliable network operations at the speed required to keep up with the pace of change. 

“Today marks one of many milestones for Nokia’s data centre networking portfolio, and we look forward to bringing even more technology innovation to our global customer base to support the AI super-cycle.”

With its latest offerings, Nokia strategically positions itself to meet the dual demands of AI-era networking –​​​​​​​ scaling data centre capacity while ensuring operational reliability through intelligent automation.