From Ukraine's "Spider Web Operation" to key EU projects: Nokia and NVIDIA join forces with defense giants to unleash a "drone storm"

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Finnish network equipment manufacturer Nokia (NOK.US) announced on Wednesday that an alliance led by Nokia, consisting of over 42 organizations including "AI chip giant" NVIDIA (NVDA.US), will launch a project focused on cutting-edge drones. This project is partially funded by the European Union and aims to protect and enhance the resilience of Europe's most critical infrastructure. The alliance members, in addition to large technology companies, also include some startups and universities, which will collaboratively build new capabilities such as laser or radar sensors on hardware platforms like drones manufactured by defense companies.

This crucial international cooperation aims to protect Europe's critical infrastructure, with drones playing an important role in monitoring energy networks, key data centers, and communication lines, and possessing the potential for dual-use military and civilian applications.

The prolonged conflict between Russia and Ukraine has highlighted the EU's shortcomings in protecting its critical defense systems, while the rise of drone-dominated warfare means that the ability to cause destruction deep within enemy territory is becoming increasingly important, leading EU member states to pay more attention to drone warfare.

It is understood that from June 1 to 2, Ukrainian intelligence launched a multi-wave drone attack called "Operation Spiderweb," using pre-infiltrated "container-truck" launch platforms to simultaneously strike at least four air bases deep within Russian territory, including bases in Bryansk, Engels, Shaykovka, and Soltsy.

The Ukrainian side claimed that "Operation Spiderweb" destroyed or severely damaged 41 Russian strategic/long-range aircraft, including Tu-95MS "Bear" strategic bombers, Tu-22M3 "Backfire" long-range bombers, and rare A-50 early warning aircraft, which accounts for more than one-third of the active fleet of similar Russian aircraft, marking one of the most destructive deep strikes by Ukrainian forces since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war.

"The protection of critical infrastructure has not always been a top priority for the EU," said Thomas Edel, head of the drone project at Nokia, in a media interview. He added that a few years ago, EU funding for a similar drone project had not yet been approved.

A significant portion of the project's funding is jointly provided by the participating countries, technology companies like Nokia, and the EU under its "Chips Joint Undertaking" framework. This plan also allows for the participation of some non-EU countries (such as Israel).

Large technology companies involved in this project include NVIDIA and Nokia, as well as well-known European defense companies such as Safran, Leonardo, and Saab.

A Nokia spokesperson stated in a statement that the company's new CEO has listed the European defense sector as one of the future priorities, alongside data centers and large AI models, and is therefore seeking to increase its presence in the European and international defense sectors.

According to a joint statement seen by the media, the initial phase of the project covering aerial, ground, and deep-water robots is planned to run for three years, with an expected revenue scale of approximately €90 million (about $102.7 million) by 2035 Analysts have indicated that if it later transitions to a defense procurement project, the overall Total Addressable Market (TAM) could reach several billion euros. Nokia has yet to confirm the total funding scale of the project.

Although the plan is primarily aimed at the civilian and security sectors, when asked whether it could potentially transform into a significant dual-use military-civilian project in the future, Edel stated, "I think it is very likely."

"But for now, this is a critical infrastructure project aimed at power lines, power plants, railways, ports, and any grid applications," he added during the interview.

For NVIDIA, which has returned to the top of the global market capitalization rankings, this not only accelerates the penetration of its high-performance AI GPUs and edge AI modules in the European public safety and defense markets but also establishes first-mover standards and ecological barriers in the global "critical infrastructure + drone AI systems" sector.

NVIDIA can leverage its integrated solution of high-performance AI GPUs + software platforms to penetrate various scenarios such as core drone systems, coastal defense, and smart outposts. In this "drone-robot" initiative, NVIDIA may play a triple role of "AI engine + security acceleration + developer ecosystem." At the hardware level, NVIDIA Jetson Orin/AGX provides real-time computing for drones; BlueField ensures secure transmission. At the software level, Isaac, Metropolis, and Holoscan can form an "end-cloud collaborative AI pipeline." At the system level, it collaborates with Nokia's 5G network system and European defense OEMs to complete aerial, ground, and underwater collaborative surveillance stacks