Chinese technology maker Xiaomi and Nokia today entered into a Business Collaboration and multi-year patent licensing agreement. While Xiaomi acquired some patent assets from Nokia, both companies have also agreed to cross-license cellular standard essential patents.
The agreements have been signed for an undisclosed amount and seem to be centred around high capacity connectivity development for large web providers and data center operations.
Details of the Agreement
In the agreement, Nokia will provide network infrastructure equipment, which is designed to deliver high performance at low power consumption. Nokia and Xiaomi will also be working on developing Optical Transport Solution (High-speed connectivity) and IP Routing based on Nokia’s FP4 network processor.
This high-speed information bridge is centred on the needs of large web providers and data centre operators.
Finland-based Nokia and China-based Xiaomi have also decided to collaborate on other strategic projects. That said, they have agreed to join hands in areas like Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence.
Xiaomi’s American dream
With the acquisition of patents from Nokia and also the cross-licensing on cellular standard essentials, Xiaomi seems to be gearing towards its foray into the North American market. The cellular standard essential patents from Nokia indicate in that direction.
Also, Xiaomi is already present in over 30 countries and is aggressively increasing its IoT-based Mi Ecosystem.
Nokia to use Xiaomi Processor?
A rumour has also popped up side by side the Nokia-Xiaomi agreement. A Weibo user and leakster @Reviewer has disclosed that Nokia may use Xiaomi’s in-house Surge S1 processor.
The Surge S1 is Xiaomi’s homegrown mid-range processor, clocked at 2.2 GHz. It is currently there on Xiaomi Mi 5c and has achieved higher benchmarks results than that of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625, which is a popular mid-range processor.
Commenting on the agreements with Xiaomi, Rajeev Suri, President & CEO, Nokia said,
“In addition to welcoming such a prominent global technology company to our family of patent licensees, we look forward to working together on a wide range of strategic projects.”
Lei Jun, Chairman and CEO, Xiaomi said,
“Our collaboration with Nokia will enable us to tap on its leadership in building large, high performance networks and formidable strength in software and services, as we seek to create even more remarkable products and services that deliver the best user experience to our Mi fans worldwide.”
