Nokia To Acquire Infinera For $2.3 Billion To Expand Optical Network Business

The Finnish corporation Nokia announced the acquisition of the optical networking solutions company Infinera for $2.3 billion.

According to Reuters, Nokia wants to expand its optical network business in the United States—where Infinera is headquartered— and join the AI services boom.

“This is pretty optimal timing for a deal of this nature when you are timing it just before the market is expected to start to recover,” said Pekka Lundmark, Nokia’s CEO, in an interview with Reuters last week. “AI is driving significant investments in data centers (…) one of the key attractions of this acquisition is that it significantly increases our exposure to data centers,” added Lundmark.

This new deal will make Nokia the second-largest vendor of optical networking solutions in the market. It will allow the Finnish firm to sell products and services to tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google) and build new AI data centers.

Nokia has been changing its business strategies drastically for the past few years. This company, historically known for its popular mobile phones—now attractive to those looking to reduce screen time for its “dumb phone” qualities—, made big moves in the past few weeks. The Finnish firm also announced the sale of its submarine cable network to the French state for 350 million euros and is currently pivoting to the AI market with a special focus on the U.S.

According to Fortune, the Finnish firm is now focusing on network infrastructure and producing 5G antennas, and the new Infinera acquisition will allow it to reinvent itself. Despite making a big shift, Nokia will not change its name at the moment. Lundmark clarified that the company’s main goal is profitability.

“What we want to do is to accelerate our exposure to AI-driven markets,” said Lundmark in a recent interview with Fortune. “In many aspects, the future of this industry will be decided in the North American market. You have the most sophisticated carriers, all the web scalars. Big tech is very much driven by North America.”