Nokia's bid to buy US optical networking gear maker Infinera in a $2.3 billion deal puts the Finnish company on track to gain from the billions of dollars in investment pouring into data centres to cater to the rise of artificial intelligence.
Nokia's move will allow the company to sell more equipment to big tech companies such as Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft as they invest billions of dollars in building new data centres to service the artificial intelligence boom. Data centres use optical transport networks - cables made of glass that transmit digital signals - to allow electronic devices to talk to each other.
Nokia, which will pay 70% of the purchase price in cash and the rest in stock, expects to save €200m in costs following the deal's closure next year.