Nokia and TAWAL Demo World’s First Shared Open RAN Edge-Cloud Platform

Nokia  and Saudi neutral-host provider TAWAL  have completed the world’s first live demonstration of a multi-tenant, shareable Open RAN edge-cloud platform, allowing mobile operators and large enterprises to launch high-performance 5G services at significantly lower costs than previous possible. The showcase proves how TAWAL can offer active infrastructure as a service while operators enjoy significant savings and futureproof their networks with open, cloud native flexibility. Nokia’s anyRAN architecture uniquely delivers the trusted performance required to run anyRAN workloads on an open edge cloud.​​

Across Saudi Arabia, demand for widespread 5G connectivity is soaring as smart city giga projects gather pace. Yet traditional single operator rollouts risk duplicating infrastructure, driving up capex and delaying service availability. By adopting a neutral host model, TAWAL can pool spectrum agnostic, Open RAN baseband and radio assets so multiple service providers share the same edge cloud platform, reducing energy consumption, freeing spectrum and shrinking the digital divide for businesses and communities nationwide. Nokia’s anyRAN solution, built on open interfaces, cloud agnostic software and high performance AirScale radios, is designed precisely to unlock these efficiencies.

Neutral hosts must add value beyond steel and concrete. By partnering with Nokia, we can offer Saudi operators an on demand, pay as you grow 5G platform that cuts their TCO and accelerates digital transformation for the Kingdom’s giga projects.

– Abdulrahman Al Moaiqel, Chief Commercial Officer, TAWAL

Moving from a tower company model to a fully-fledged network company demands technology that combines openness with proven performance. Our anyRAN approach lets TAWAL mix and match vendors at the cloud layer while still guaranteeing the ultrareliable, low latency experience operators and end users expect.

– Mikko Lavanti, Senior Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Nokia

During the live demonstration at LEAP 2025 in Riyadh, Nokia 5G AirScale Indoor Radios were connected to Dell PowerEdge XR8000 servers hosting virtualized CU/DU software in Nokia’s anyRAN framework. The open, cloud‑native platform supports multi‑operator RAN sharing and can host third‑party RAN software, giving TAWAL full vendor flexibility while maintaining carrier‑grade performance. The solution’s compact footprint and reduced power draw make it ideal for smart‑city edge nodes and enterprise campuses.