NVIDIA is urgently seeking Chinese AI base station suppliers and plans to launch end-side computing power networking in the next two years.

Nvidia is urgently seeking AI base station suppliers in China to develop 6G AI-RAN base stations, which are base stations that handle both communication connections and AI computing tasks.

On August 4, a reporter from *Hard Tech Headlines* of Jiemian News exclusively learned from core sources in the communications industry chain that Nvidia is accelerating its entry into the telecom operator market and looking for base station manufacturer partners in China to develop 6G base stations that meet the requirements of overseas markets.

The source described that Nvidia is looking for the "next Innolight" for end-side computing power, as Nvidia believes that the transmission of computing power from data centers to massive AI terminals and users in the future will ultimately rely on wireless transmission via base stations.

The aforementioned source said that Nvidia is pushing forward this project at a "relatively urgent" pace, hoping to enter the trial network in 2027 or 2028.

Reporters from Jiemian News have exclusively learned that Shenzhen Jiaxian Communications is one of the base station partners that Nvidia is establishing. An internal source of the company confirmed to Jiemian News that Nvidia has been in contact with the company since 2025. At present, the two sides are cooperating to develop 6G AI-RAN base stations based on Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem, and their cooperation has lasted for more than half a year.

"Jiaxian Communications and Nvidia have set up a dedicated working group. More than ten people from Nvidia are involved in it, with members distributed in Singapore, Hong Kong and Chinese mainland. At present, the working group is conducting research around the open source ecosystem of Nvidia's CUDA system," a relevant person from Jiaxian Communications told Jiemian News reporter.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Shenzhen, Jiaxian Communications is a provider of AI-RAN wireless communication products and solutions. On August 4, Tongyu Communications announced that it would acquire approximately 25% equity of Jiaxian Communications for 300 million yuan.

Jiemian News reporter learned that the cooperation between Jiaxian Communications and Nvidia has entered the technical R&D stage, and the possibility of establishing a commercial entity to jointly expand overseas markets is not excluded.

"First of all, at the technical level, we have started cooperation," said the relevant person from Jiaxian Communications. In the current cooperation between the two sides, Nvidia does not directly produce and sell complete base stations, but participates in the form of chips and technical ecosystems, that is, base station companies purchase Nvidia GPUs, develop 6G AI-RAN base stations based on Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem, and sell the finished products to overseas markets.

"It is expected that the prototype of the AI base station developed with Nvidia will be released by the end of this year, and will be launched to the market within one or two years after passing the verification," said the aforementioned person.

For Nvidia, AI base stations are a promising business no less important than computing power data centers.

In the AI 1.0 stage, computing power is mainly concentrated in data centers, and Nvidia has sold a large number of GPUs. After entering the 2.0 stage where AI applications are implemented, the application space of end-side computing power is broader. Nvidia hopes that its chips can also be used for edge and end-side computing power. Therefore, the layout of AI base stations is Nvidia's preparation for the upcoming end-side computing power era.

In other words, chip companies can provide GPU and model inference capabilities, but to deploy computing power to the network edge and directly sell it to terminals and users, base stations and operator networks are still required for bearing.

Nvidia's ambition in the communications field is very eager and obvious.

On October 28, 2025, Nvidia announced that it would subscribe for new Nokia shares with 1 billion US dollars, holding about 2.9% of the shares. As part of the cooperation, Nokia will develop commercial AI-RAN products based on Nvidia's platform and integrate them into the existing radio access network product line, enabling operators to deploy AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G-oriented networks.

In February this year, Nvidia joined forces with Nokia, Ericsson, T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, SoftBank and other enterprises to propose building 6G with an open, software-defined and AI-native platform. In March this year, Nvidia, T-Mobile and Nokia announced the progress of AI-RAN tests, trying to make base stations and mobile switching centers run edge AI tasks while providing 5G connections.

Industry chain analysts pointed out that AI infrastructure will gradually extend from centralized computing power centers to distributed computing power networks composed of base stations, edge computer rooms and local nodes. Especially overseas, some markets lack the conditions for building large-scale centralized data centers, and distributed computing power may become an important supplement.

"Almost no countries other than China and the United States have the strength to build large-scale data centers, and end-side edge computing power will be a more vigorous demand around the world," said the aforementioned person.

Reporters learned that Jiaxian Communications plans to launch a 6G AI-RAN prototype based on Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem by the end of this year. If the product is deployed on a large scale, the total sales volume of the company in the 6G era will reach the million-unit level. Calculated at about 200,000 yuan per unit, the corresponding market size of 1 million units is about 200 billion yuan. Analysis institution Omdia predicts that by 2030, the cumulative market size of AI-RAN is expected to exceed 200 billion US dollars.

Nvidia's choice to find AI base station suppliers in China also has its practical considerations.

The global base station industry chain, like the optical module industry chain, has been highly concentrated in China. Commercial research institution IndexBox estimates that in 2026, China will account for 60% to 70% of the global 5G base station hardware manufacturing, with major production clusters distributed in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Shanghai and Chengdu.

Nvidia's possession of chips and software ecosystem does not mean that it can independently complete the R&D of base stations. Base stations also involve radio frequency, microwave, antennas, AAU, complete machine manufacturing, production testing and operator network adaptation, all of which are highly dependent on the long-formed engineering experience of the communications industry.

Reporters learned from people in the communications industry chain that the base station industry is highly professional. After the industrial cluster is formed, it is difficult for other regions to train relevant personnel again. At the same time, it takes a very long time to train engineers in this industry. The talents in the base station industry, especially hardware talents and production capacity, are mainly concentrated in China.

"Therefore, Nvidia can only find manufacturers in China to make the cheapest, most cost-effective and best base stations," said the aforementioned industry chain person. Even overseas communication equipment enterprises such as Nokia and Ericsson have their production capacity located in China, and are OEMed by enterprises such as Luxshare Precision and Foxconn.

In his view, the base station industry has basically disappeared overseas, and it is difficult to complete the complete production, assembly, testing and hardware R&D overseas, while these capabilities are still concentrated in China. "Although this industry has a large market and high output value, it has taken deep root in China. Other electronics industries may still find alternatives overseas, but the base station industry is difficult to replicate."

Relevant people from Jiaxian Communications told reporters that since major domestic communication equipment enterprises such as Huawei and ZTE have their own chips and technical ecosystems, and are affected by the Sino-US technology industry environment, Nvidia has very limited choices of independent base station partners in China.

Reporters learned from operator channels that operators are also accelerating the popularization of AI base stations, because the current 5G tariff is relatively low, but if the "Token" fee is added, the price will be greatly increased.

In May 2026, China Telecom launched a Token package, while China Mobile tried to integrate communication traffic with large model Tokens; the "Token Factory" of China Telecom Ningxia has a centralized procurement scale of about 17.4 billion yuan. Operators are trying to shift from selling voice and traffic to further selling model invocation and inference services. Core people in the communications industry chain also analyzed that 6G base stations will restart a trillion-yuan level of communication infrastructure investment.

With the gradual maturity of various large models trained by computing power centers, the end-side and distributed computing power infrastructure of AI is being rapidly put on the agenda.

As Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Qualcomm, judged at the beginning of this year: "Whoever seizes edge AI is more likely to win the entire AI era."

This article is from the WeChat official account "Jiemian News", author: Lin Teng, Liang Baoxin, published with authorization from 36Kr.