Thierry Klein, President, Bell Labs Solutions Research – Nokia
In an interview with Invest: Thierry Klein, president of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia, discussed the organization’s 100-year legacy of innovation, its future HELIX research facility in New Jersey, and the future of cross-industry collaboration. “True innovation happens at the intersection of disciplines,” he noted.
What is your overview of Nokia Bell Labs and its presence in New Jersey?
Nokia Bell Labs is the research arm of Nokia. Many people know Nokia as a phone company, but we don’t make phones anymore. We’re one of a small number of network and communication infrastructure providers in the world. We have a long history of innovation and disruptive technology development, and we are celebrating 100 years of Bell Labs this year. Bell Labs was founded in 1925 and has been at the forefront of many communication and networking technologies that all of us use every day. We continue to innovate, and we continue to do research and lead the next generation of technology, products, solutions, and services for Nokia, our industry, and society at large. Our scope includes everything that deals with communication, networking, and computing technologies.
Reflecting on the past year and the 100th anniversary, what have been the key milestones for Nokia Bell Labs and the Solutions Research organization?
For our centennial year, one of the key research themes relates to foundational technologies in communication, networking, and computing — core technologies like wireless networking, optical networking, semiconductor, and device technologies. The second theme, sensing, focuses on capturing the physical world to optimize environments for consumer networks, enterprise networks, or industrial automation, using data and AI for insights. The network itself can act as a sensor, alongside traditional sensors, cameras, or computer vision, to improve productivity, efficiency, and safety in settings like factories or other industrial environments. The third area, AI, builds on Bell Labs’ history since Claude Shannon in the 1940s, applying AI to all networking domains, including wireless, broadband access, IP, and optical networks, and applying AI across the entire network life cycle. The latter includes designing AI-native networks, optimizing network deployment, network operations, improving customer care, and network troubleshooting and performing advanced predictive maintenance. We also apply AI and machine learning to enterprise and industrial automation challenges in such areas as object detection and tracking, dynamic digital twins, cloud-driven robot orchestration, and large physical world models. The fourth area, quantum, includes quantum computing, particularly topological quantum computing, quantum networking, quantum security, quantum sensing, and post-quantum cryptography. The fifth area, space communication, follows Bell Labs’ launch of the Telstar satellite in 1962 and the first cellular network on the Moon this last March, supporting the growing space economy for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. These areas have seen significant innovation and groundbreaking results recently.
What is the strategy behind the move to the HELIX facility, and what new collaborations do you expect it will support?
We have been planning to upgrade our facility in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where we’ve been since 1941, to modernize and right-size it for our current research. In December 2023, we announced our plans to move to New Brunswick and build a new, state-of-the-art research facility. The site is ideal because it’s a purpose-built research building, with clean rooms and labs for wireless, optical communication, quantum computing, and robotics, including indoor drone flying. Each lab will have unique specifications not found in existing buildings. The location, across from the train station, offers easy access to New York, Washington, and Northeast corridor cities, and the downtown area provides a vibrant community with cafes, restaurants, and shops. The ecosystem, with Rutgers University, Johnson & Johnson, startups, and other companies nearby, will enhance collaboration in research and accelerate the transition from research to product.
What is Nokia Bell Labs’ process for turning fundamental research into commercial solutions, and how will this benefit New Jersey?
Our mission is to solve key generational problems through technology, ensuring measurable impact on industry and society. We take technology out of labs to address real-world challenges, not just to publish papers or file patents. For example, if a business problem exists and we invent a solution, but you can’t access it, the problem remains unsolved. The ability to solve real-world problems is what distinguishes industrial research from academic research at Nokia Bell Labs. Technology transfer occurs by moving technology into Nokia business units for productization and commercialization, or through partnerships, joint ventures, licensing, or incubation/spin-outs. Recently, for our centennial, we held a ribbon-cutting for the Bell Labs Venture Studio in New Jersey, created with the state and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), to spin out research technologies into startups, complementing transfers to Nokia and adding another commercialization path.
How will the new Strategic Innovation Center with NJEDA accelerate the commercialization of Nokia Bell Labs research?
The Bell Labs Venture Studio is considered a Strategic Innovation Center, and there are several in New Jersey. Ours with the NJEDA is the Bell Labs Venture Studio, which will initially be housed in our current Murray Hill facility. When we move to New Brunswick, it will come with us.
More broadly, what key trends are reshaping innovation today, and how are they impacting your operations?
AI, which is impacting all industrial sectors, drives key trends but relies on communication networks to connect data sources to AI systems, linking data-collecting devices to processing data centers for large language models. AI will transform industries, and enabling technologies like connectivity, computing platforms, and cloud computing are crucial for the AI revolution. Connectivity, often taken for granted, proved essential during COVID for remote work and remote schooling via online learning and collaboration platforms. The network’s importance will grow with pervasive AI adoption, alongside quantum computing, which will change the computing paradigm. AI, quantum, and their supporting technologies — networking, advanced connectivity, and computing platforms — will all be critical.
What is your outlook for Nokia Bell Labs and New Jersey’s innovation ecosystem, and how does it align with your priorities for the next three to five years?
New Jersey has a history of innovation in telecom, pharmaceuticals, medical industries, logistics, transportation, and agriculture, hosting leading global companies for decades. We aim to continue this tradition, contributing through telecommunications, while partnering with other industries. Our technologies — communication, computing, AI — will advance other sectors through digitalization and transformation. Collaboration is crucial, as innovation occurs at the intersection of disciplines and industries. Disruption happens when people from different backgrounds and technical fields collaborate, realizing their work can benefit each other. A quote captures this: What’s hard in your field might be easy in another, and vice versa. This shows the value of cross-boundary expertise, leveraging solutions from other disciplines to address challenges and tap into opportunities.
