Nokia CEO Justin Hotard laid out his priorities for the Finnish vendor in a CNBC interview, naming AI infrastructure demand, 6G development and space as the three fronts where he sees the company's next phase of growth.

The interview, published by CNBC, is one of Hotard's clearest public statements since taking the top job at Nokia, and it signals where the equipment maker intends to place its engineering and capital in the second half of the decade.

Why AI infrastructure tops the list

Hotard pointed to demand for AI infrastructure as a driving force for Nokia's business, reflecting the build-out of data centre networks that train and run large AI models. For a vendor long anchored in radio access equipment sold to telecom operators, the shift matters: hyperscale data centre customers buy different products, on different cycles, than mobile carriers do.

Nokia has been repositioning its networks portfolio toward these buyers, and the CEO's framing in the interview treats AI-related infrastructure spending not as a side business but as a central pillar of the company's addressable market.

What did he say about 6G?

Hotard also addressed 6G, the next generation of mobile technology that vendors and operators expect to commercialise toward the end of the decade. Standards work is already under way in bodies such as 3GPP, and vendors are competing to shape the technical agenda early — a pattern that played out with 5G, where early positioning translated into contract wins years later.

For Nokia, 6G is both a product roadmap question and a marketing one: the company needs its operator customers to see continued evolution beyond 5G Advanced as worth investing in, even as many carriers are still digesting 5G capex.

The CEO's comments place Nokia firmly in the camp of vendors arguing that 6G research and standardisation timelines are concrete enough to plan around now.

Space as the third leg

The third theme, space, points to Nokia's work on communications technology beyond terrestrial networks — an area where the vendor has already engaged with satellite direct-to-device ecosystems and non-terrestrial network integration under the 5G standards framework.

Speaking to CNBC, Hotard positioned space alongside AI infrastructure and 6G as a domain where Nokia's networking technology has a role, rather than a peripheral bet.

The commercial backdrop

The interview comes at a moment when telecom equipment vendors are searching for growth outside a saturated carrier market. Operator capex on 5G radio has peaked in many regions, and vendors including Nokia have looked to enterprise networking, cloud and now AI-linked infrastructure to fill the gap.

Hotard's emphasis on AI infrastructure demand is consistent with that strategy: data centre operators and AI builders are spending heavily, and network equipment — switching, optical transport and interconnect — is a meaningful part of that spend.

Readers should treat the CEO's growth framing as vendor positioning until it shows up in reported segment results. Nokia's own financial disclosures remain the yardstick for how much AI infrastructure, 6G and space actually contribute to revenue.

What happens next

The timelines that matter from here are 3GPP's 6G standardisation schedule, expected to produce first specifications in the 2028–2029 window with commercial launches around 2030, and Nokia's next financial reports, which will show whether AI infrastructure orders are converting into sales.

Hotard's CNBC appearance makes one thing clear: the CEO wants Nokia judged as an AI-era networking company, not only a mobile infrastructure supplier — and the market will test that claim over the coming quarters.