Nokia and Xiaomi announced that they have signed a business collaboration agreement and a multi-year patent agreement, including a cross license to each company's cellular standard essential patents. Xiaomi also acquired patent assets from Nokia as part of the transaction.
"Xiaomi is one of the world's leading smartphone manufacturers and we are delighted to have reached an agreement with them," said Rajeev Suri, President and CEO of Nokia. "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."
Under the business cooperation agreement, Nokia will provide network infrastructure equipment designed to deliver the high capacity, low power requirements expected by large web providers and datacenter operators. Nokia and Xiaomi will work together on optical transport solutions for datacenter interconnect, IP Routing based on Nokia's newly announced FP4 network processor, and a data center fabric solution. In addition, the companies have agreed to explore opportunities for further cooperation, in areas such as Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.
With presence in over 30 countries and regions, Xiaomi is well known for its smartphones packed with innovative technologies at disruptive prices. Beyond smartphones, Xiaomi is also a leading Internet of Things player. The Mi Ecosystem IoT platform has crossed 60 million connected devices, and there are now over 8 million daily active connected devices on the Mi Ecosystem platform.
"As a company seeking to deliver more exciting technological innovations to the world, we are excited at the opportunity to work more closely with Nokia in future," said Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi. "Xiaomi is committed to building sustainable, long-term partnerships with global technology leaders. 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."
