Interesting sequence of developments ahead of the NATO Summit.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said billions of dollars in new defense contracts will be announced around the NATO Summit.

Separately, Walter Bloomberg posted:

"SENIOR U.S. OFFICIAL: GOING TO HAVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF ANNOUNCEMENTS ON SIDELINES OF NATO SUMMIT"

At the same time, NATO's official summit agenda highlights three priorities:

• Defence Investment
• Defence Industry
• Support for Ukraine

Now, a Finnish newspaper (Iltalehti) reports the following:

• Nokia has been invited to NATO's Defence Industry Forum in Ankara.
• According to Finnish and international foreign/security policy sources, Nokia's tactical 5G technology is already being used by Ukrainian forces to control drones.
• The sources claim the technology has proven itself on the battlefield and has attracted interest from the United States and several NATO countries.
• The article also says Nokia is expected to receive additional orders, although that comes from unnamed sources rather than an official announcement.

Separately, these are already public facts:

• Nokia has been expanding its defense business through Nokia Federal Solutions.
• Nokia and Lockheed Martin recently introduced a modular military 5G solution built to Pentagon standards.
• Nokia has also announced projects involving secure communications, tactical networking, counter-drone capabilities, and military private 5G.

Putting everything together:

• NATO says major defense announcements are coming.
• The summit agenda focuses on defense industry and Ukraine.
• Nokia has reportedly been invited to the industry forum.
• A Finnish newspaper reports that Nokia's technology has already been tested in Ukraine and is attracting NATO interest.

Whether these developments ultimately benefit Nokia should become much clearer once the NATO Summit concludes and any contract awards, partnerships, or procurement announcements are made. Until then, it's a matter of connecting publicly reported information rather than assuming an outcome.

June 29, 2026

Comin Asia today announced a strategic partnership with Nokia to design and deploy AI-ready data centre infrastructure across Southeast Asia, combining Comin Asia’s on-the-ground engineering and project execution capabilities with Nokia’s advanced data centre networking and automation technologies.

The partnership addresses accelerating demand for secure, sovereign, and scalable AI infrastructure in the region—particularly in emerging and underserved markets such as Cambodia and Laos—where power availability, regulatory conditions, and deployment realities are reshaping where and how AI infrastructure is built.

This initiative will focus on modular, in-building, and edge-ready data centre deployments, enabling enterprises and governments to process data closer to where it is generated, while maintaining control over data sovereignty, data privacy, and operational resilience

Around 11:30am, shares in the connectivity specialist are up 1.9% at around €11, while the STOXX Europe 600 is flat and the STOXX Europe tech index is up 0.9%.

In a note published this morning, BofA reiterates its buy rating on the stock, while raising its target to €15.6 from €14.4, implying upside potential of more than 44%.

The investment bank says it expects the group to once again post strong performance in artificial intelligence (AI)-related order intake when it reports its second-quarter results, due on July 23.

According to the US firm, investor attention will mainly focus on the size of order intake in the AI and cloud segments.

BofA expects AI technology-related hardware orders in the second quarter to come in at least in line with the €1bn recorded in the first quarter, thanks to recent wins in data center switch contracts and continued strength in demand for optical transport components.

Orange Belgium selects Nokia for optical network upgrade to future-proof its infrastructure, ensuring leadership in 5g, quantum-resilient security and ai-scale computing demands

Nokia has appointed Mikko Viitaniemi as the new Head of Defense, starting September 1st. He joins Nokia from Finnish defense group Patria, where he served as VP of Commercial and Business Development for Defense and Weapon Systems.

In a LinkedIn post, Viitaniemi said:

>For over 20 years, I have been deeply involved in building and internationalizing the domestic defense industry—first at Bittium and most recently over the past seven years at Patria. Now, it is time to step into the next boots and take on a new challenge. On September 1st, I will join Nokia as Head of Defense. > >I am making this move because I see this role as the most compelling opportunity in the entire defense sector today, especially here in Finland. While I have had the privilege of driving significant growth in my previous roles, Nokia leadership's strong mandate and clear vision make this upcoming chapter uniquely exciting. > >Thank you for the trust, Justin and Mikko! I truly look forward to joining this exceptional new community and driving our global defense business forward.

I thot a 10% pop after trump mentioned it today. No reaction at all!!

Nvidia is believed to be working on a “massive” project that could create a new, very high capacity long-haul telecom project, Needham Securities said. And with the cost likely between $5B and $10B over three years, Ciena, Cisco and several others may benefit, the investment firm said.

“While we are not certain of their rationale, we suspect NVDA seeks to reduce its dependence on the big 4 hyperscalers who dominate global hosting and LH interconnect capacity by building direct connectivity and hosting for its strategic neocloud partners and future enterprise customers,” Needham analyst Ryan Koontz wrote in a note to clients. “Among beneficiaries of this unannounced program, we have identified CIEN, CSCO, NOK, GLW, Zayo, and Lumen as likely contract awardees.”

Delving deeper, Koontz said he believes Ciena could see an incremental $500M to $800M in sales from the project over the next two or three years, while Cisco and Nokia see less. And with Ciena shares having pulled back, Koontz said he is “more bullish” on the stock and sees a “clear path to accelerating revenues as industry supply chains steadily expand.” He has a Buy rating and $600 price target on Ciena.

Aside from Ciena, the checks also show that the network has “dozens” of fiber pairs that can be used to deliver more than 5 petabytes worth of data, with Corning, Ciena, Nokia, Zayo and Lumen benefiting.

Corning is expected to be the prime fiber supplier with all U.S. deployments, with Zayo and Lumen building via the Managed Optical Fiber Network model.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.

Support at 13.00, resistance at 14.70

Your thoughts on NOK? Original tweet post - https://x.com/hhuynhs/status/2069876303441154194