Nokia, the 161-year-old company, has become the hottest AI infrastructure stock, with shares up 140% year-to-date.
Shares in the Finnish company, which was started as a paper mill, rose from 6.50 at the start of the year to a 52-week high of 15.78 in May.
These are the highest inventories since 2008.
The reason for the increase is Nvidia’s investment back in October 2025 at 6.01 per share, which takes about 3% of the shares.
This collaboration is centered around AI-RAN, which is an AI workload combined with wireless network infrastructure. The first implementation partner for the project is T-Mobile, while Nokia’s AI-RAN offering has 10 public customers, which include Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, SoftBank and NTT Docomo.
The rally accelerated after Nokia’s first-quarter earnings report. The company reported revenue of around 4.5 billion euros, up 4% on the previous year, while comparable operating profit rose 54% to 281 million euros.
AI and cloud sales rose 49%, and Nokia secured €1 billion in cloud deals in the quarter, most of which were related to optical networking products used in AI data centers.
1st quarter revenue in Optical Networks increased by 20%. CEO Justin Hotard stated that the cloud leaders will spend more than $700 billion on their AI infrastructure needs.
So far, Nokia’s infrastructure growth is expected to increase by 12% to 14%, while optical and IP networks are expected to grow by 18% to 20%.
