Nokia expands networking range for AI Infrastructure

Nokia has announced an expansion of its data centre networking portfolio to address increasing performance and scalability needs associated with AI workloads. The company is introducing a new family of 7220 Interconnect Router (IXR) high-performance data centre switches, alongside updated Artificial Intelligence for Operations (AIOps) capabilities for its Event-Driven Automation (EDA) management platform. The 7220 IXR-H6 series is designed to support a wide range of deployment requirements.

Flexibility and scalable performance for AI data centres

The 7220 IXR-H6 switches offer throughput of up to 102.4 Tb/s, with interface speeds of 800 Gigabit Ethernet and 1.6 Terabit Ethernet. This provides increased capacity within the same physical footprint, reflecting the growing scalability and performance demands of AI data centres. The switches incorporate features aimed at managing packet flows, reducing congestion, and improving network efficiency in large-scale AI environments that may involve up to one million XPUs. They also align with Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) specifications.

AI-enabled network functions

Cloud service providers and enterprises are placing greater emphasis on automation, AIOps, and modernisation approaches to limit downtime and maintain performance across data centre network operations. In response to rising operational complexity, Nokia is adding agentic AI-based tools to its EDA platform. The updated EDA AIOps system combines natural language interfaces with automated reasoning capabilities to support faster issue detection, root-cause analysis, and resolution across data centre networks.

A recent report by Bell Labs Consulting and Futurum, Data centre fabric reliability study, indicates that the combination of EDA’s real-time telemetry, integrated digital twin, dry-run functionality, and rapid roll-back options enables operators to address network issues more effectively, with a reported 96% reduction in data centre network downtime.

Vach Kompella, Nokia’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of IP Networks, noted that the widespread adoption of AI is driving changes in hardware and operational tools. He stated that the new 7220 IXR-H6 switches and the enhancements to the EDA platform aim to support more reliable and responsive data centre network operations.