Moody's Lifts Nokia to Investment Grade as Five-Year Indian Engineering Pact Adds to AI Pipeline

Nokia shares rose 3.5% on Friday, catching the tailwind of a sector-wide recovery in optical communications stocks following a sharp selloff at midweek. Media reports placed the Finnish vendor within that broader rebound without pointing to any company-specific catalyst for the session — leaving the sector bounce as the backdrop for the gain.

Separately, Moody's Ratings upgraded Nokia's long-term issuer rating and its senior unsecured debt rating from Ba1 to Baa3, according to media reports on Tuesday. The outlook is positive. The move lifts both the company as a borrower and its senior unsecured obligations into investment-grade territory.

Ownership Disclosures and an Indian Engineering Mandate

FMR LLC and Abigail P. Johnson each reported an economically attributable Nokia stake of 3.8% in an amended Schedule 13G filing on Wednesday, reflecting positions as of September 30.

Nokia also announced a five-year contract with L&T Technology Services in India covering engineering services and research and development support.

On the AI infrastructure front, the company and Semidynamics signed a memorandum of understanding on October 29. The two intend to examine whether Semidynamics' AI inference accelerators and liquid-cooled racks can be integrated with Nokia's data center networking. The agreement is exploratory in nature and serves to study a possible integration.

Hotwire Taps Nokia for North Carolina Build

Hotwire Communications selected Nokia on Wednesday to build an AI-ready network in North Carolina. According to the company, the project is scheduled to go into operation in early 2027. Nokia did not disclose a contract value in its announcement.

In its global network traffic report, also published Wednesday, Nokia forecast that artificial intelligence will account for 44% of global data traffic by 2035. Total network traffic is expected to reach nearly 3,789 exabytes per month by then. Those figures represent a long-range company projection rather than traffic volumes already achieved.

The report underscores the growing demand for network infrastructure driven by AI. No direct link between its publication and Friday's share price move has been established; for the North Carolina project, the early-2027 launch target expected by Hotwire remains the next stated timeline milestone.