Nokia ditches data centers for Google Cloud in five-year deal

Nokia Oyj has signed a five-year deal to move its IT infrastructure onto Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud, marking another major corporate win for the U.S. tech firm.

The Finnish company, most famous for its rise and fall as a phone maker, is now focused on building network equipment for next-generation 5G wireless services. (REUTERS)

Nokia will move away from the less efficient data centers and servers it owns and rents across roughly a dozen countries, accumulated over various acquisitions, said Ravi Parmasad, the company's vice president of global IT infrastructure, in an interview with Bloomberg. 

The companies declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.

“Every few years you have to go and invest in all of this hardware, so we get to break that cycle,” said Parmasad.

The Finnish company, most famous for its rise and fall as a phone maker, is now focused on building network equipment for next-generation 5G wireless services. New Chief Executive Officer Pekka Lundmark is in a three-way battle for the global 5G market with Sweden's Ericsson AB and China's Huawei Technologies Co.

“We are making significant progress really fast in the telco space,” said Rob Enslin, president of Google Cloud sales, referencing recent deals with carriers, such as Vodafone Group Plc. Google also recently won a multiyear deal to store Renault SA's manufacturing data, marking the U.S. tech company's first major industrial cloud deal in France.

Meanwhile Google has moved beyond its search and advertising businesses to become one of the biggest providers of internet infrastructure, building the “pipes” of the internet in a role dominated by telecom operators in previous decades.

By Thomas Seal