Nokia's Satellite Pact With ICEYE Eyes Ukraine as AI Networking Orders Surge

Nokia shares closed Wednesday at €7.00, up 3.5%, as the Finnish telecom equipment maker pressed ahead on several fronts — a freshly signed satellite communications memorandum with Ukraine, deepening AI networking ties, and a quarterly report that showed robust profit growth alongside a more cautious cash-flow outlook.

A Memorandum, Not an Order

The Helsinki-based company and satellite operator ICEYE signed a letter of intent with Ukraine's defense ministry on October 22. Under the arrangement, the two firms will explore possible cooperation on sovereign satellite communications for the country. Nokia was careful to frame the document as a scoping exercise rather than a contract already awarded for building out a satellite network.

The satellite news landed a day after Nokia flagged progress in its work with NVIDIA on artificial intelligence. The company unveiled a sovereign platform built around agent-based AI for running telecom networks autonomously, and separately reported advances toward commercial deployment of AI in radio access networks. Field trials in live networks and customer programs are said to be edging toward operational use.

Hotwire Picks Nokia for North Carolina Build

On the customer side, Hotwire Communications selected Nokia on Wednesday to construct a next-generation network in North Carolina, designed to be ready for AI-driven network architectures. Hotwire expects the network to go live in early 2027, putting the project's timeline into next year.

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The broader market backdrop was friendlier for AI-linked names on Wednesday, with shares tied to artificial intelligence recovering from a broad selloff. AP reported gains among companies connected to the construction of AI data centers. That coverage describes the sector environment only — the agency did not cast Nokia as a driver of the move, nor did it explicitly attribute the stock's advance to the recovery among those firms.

Profit Jumps 35% as AI Orders Double

In its quarterly report roughly two weeks ago, Nokia posted third-quarter 2026 revenue of EUR 5,154 million, a 10% increase year over year. Comparable operating profit climbed 35% to EUR 605 million. The customer business in AI and cloud was the standout: revenue there jumped 123%, with order intake up 118%.

For the full year 2026, Nokia left its comparable operating profit guidance unchanged at a range of EUR 2.1 billion to EUR 2.6 billion. It did, however, lower its assumption for free-cash-flow conversion to between 35% and 55%.

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The Long View: AI at 44% of Global Traffic

Nokia's longer-range projections sketch out where management sees the networking market heading. In its "Global Network Traffic Report," the company forecasts that artificial intelligence will account for 44% of global network traffic by 2035 — a forward-looking estimate, not a current figure. Over the same horizon, Nokia expects total data traffic to approach 3,789 exabytes per month, a volume forecast covering worldwide network traffic overall, while the percentage describes the AI-driven share of it. For the North Carolina project specifically, Hotwire offers a far nearer anchor: operations beginning in early 2027.

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