Nokia Bell Labs celebrates 100 years of pioneering innovations, shaping the past, present and future

Press Release 

Nokia Bell Labs celebrates 100 years of pioneering innovations, shaping the past, present and future

• Over the last century, Nokia’s award-winning industrial research arm whose inventions of the transistor, solar cell and laser laid the groundwork for the digital age and paved a path to the internet.
• Today, it continues to chart new paths in space communications, quantum, artificial intelligence, foundational technologies and sensing to address humanity’s most pressing challenges.

6 February 2025

Murray Hill, New Jersey – Nokia’s renowned industrial research arm behind the invention of the transistor, the solar cell, the laser and countless more, Nokia Bell Labs, is celebrating its centennial in 2025, marking 100 years of groundbreaking discoveries and innovations that blazed the trail for the digital age and pushed the boundaries of what’s possible.

Nishant Batra, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at Nokia, said: “The last century would be unrecognizable without Nokia Bell Labs. We established the foundations for modern communications, computing and the internet, setting the standard for the telecommunications industry, with a profound impact on people and communities worldwide. Our legacy is embedded in every bit within the billions of terabytes that flow through global networks each year and our dedicated researchers are tirelessly working on the groundbreaking innovations that will shape the future.”

Over the past 100 years, Nokia Bell Labs researchers have made revolutionary discoveries in radio astronomy, semiconductors, Information Theory and cellular communications that have driven U.S. and global innovation and laid the groundwork for the digital age​. These breakthroughs and many others have resulted in 10 Nobel Prizes and five Turing Awards, as well as three Emmys, two Grammys and an Academy Award.

Today, its legacy lives on in wavelengths, wires and bits as it charts new paths in space communications, quantum, artificial intelligence, foundational technologies and sensing that address humanity’s most pressing challenges. Nokia Bell Labs is setting world-record optical speeds to meet the insatiable global demand for high-speed communication, deploying cellular networks that will underpin sustained human presence on the Moon and beyond, and conducting industry-leading 6G research that will fuse the physical, digital and human worlds.

Peter Vetter, President of Bell Labs Core Research at Nokia, said: “At Nokia Bell Labs, we don't just follow trends, we create them. Our researchers focus on solving hard problems that have a real human need in order to come up with the next big thing. From pioneering concepts for 6G and world-firsts in fiber technology to innovations in sensing and understanding that fuses the physical, digital and human worlds, we are redefining how we perceive the world around us and augmenting our capabilities.”​

Thierry E. Klein, President of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia, said: “For the last 100 years, Nokia Bell Labs has been​ harnessing the extraordinary imaginations ​of our researchers​ to push the boundaries of what is possible and create transformative real-world solutions. In our next century, we are delivering the communication building blocks here on Earth as well as for a rapidly growing space economy that underpins sustained human presence on the Moon – and beyond.”

Leveraging Nokia Bell Labs' pioneering technology, Nokia helps propel society, industry and the environment toward a more sustainable future — expanding possibilities and redefining how we live, work and care for our planet.

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Nokia Bell Labs will be hosting celebrations and events at its locations around the world in 2025, follow the latest at .

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About Nokia

At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together.

As a B2B technology innovation leader, we are pioneering networks that sense, think and act by leveraging our work across mobile, fixed and cloud networks. In addition, we create value with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, which is celebrating 100 years of innovation.

With truly open architectures that seamlessly integrate into any ecosystem, our high-performance networks create new opportunities for monetization and scale. Service providers, enterprises and partners worldwide trust Nokia to deliver secure, reliable and sustainable networks today – and work with us to create the digital services and applications of the future.

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