Nokia Foresees Boom in Network Demand Fuelled by Metaverse, Web3, AI Penetration

Finnish telecom major Nokia estimates that by 2030, the demand in Internet network will explode with advanced tech like Web3, Metaverse, and Artificial Intelligence taking centre stage. Nokia, moving forward, is planning strategies to make its equipment and services capable of handling the demand load. The company will be laying special focus on bringing its products and services to work in sync with smart contracts and blockchains to thrive in the upcoming era of decentralisation.

Nokia released its Technology Strategy 2030 report this week, outlining the direction it plans to take in the coming years as technology evolves and becomes more sophisticated. The telecom infrastructure provider estimates that the demand of network in the next seven years, is likely to rise by 22 percent to 25 percent.

“In the years ahead, networks will undergo significant evolution and must become cognitive and automated ecosystems capable of addressing the transformative needs and operating models of diverse organisations, industries and consumers. Advances in metaverse technologies, Web3, semiconductors, software, AI and Machine Learning (ML) will significantly extend the scope of what is possible, connecting and merging the human, physical and digital worlds to help solve some of the greatest global challenges we face,” the report says.

In the recent years, the network infrastructure available in present time has had to face several challenges especially related to security and cyber safety. Despite the downtimes and glitches however, the network providers did manage to push aforementioned technologies to the world. Nokia believes that stepping into the later years, network infrastructure providers will have to step up the game because technology is only going to grow more advanced.

Nokia has been exploring the field of metaverse since 2022 – when it reportedly kickstarted research work and studies exploring the industrial use cases of the metaverse tech. A fully functional virtual universe, the metaverse makes for a digital destination for people to socialise and work in as avatars – right from the comfort of their homes. The company has also managed to use the ‘digital twin technology' to create a future network architecture compatible with advanced metaverse use cases and human augmentation. The digital twin technology is capable of twinning a virtual model of a physical object seamlessly.

Along with the metaverse, Nokia predicts that the deeper technologies like Generative AI and devices to access Virtual Reality (VR) penetrates, the more the demand for secure network escalate.

“Through networks that sense, think and act, we work with our customers and partners to create the digital services and applications of the future. Our products and solutions bring digitalisation to physical industries and cities, helping them decarbonise and increase efficiency, productivity and safety,” Nokia's report noted.