Digital Infrastructure at the G7 Summit Side Event

Building roads and bridges to boost trade and bring jobs has been a tried and tested strategy for governments.

At Nokia, we believe investment in digital infrastructure should be taken as seriously as physical infrastructure because digitalization and connectivity improve safety, productivity, efficiency and sustainability. That is a fact.

I was privileged and honored to be invited by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to share 诺基亚 ’s perspective at the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) Side Event the G7 Hiroshima Summit on how to make initiatives like PGII and Global Gateway as impactful as possible.

We discussed how digitalization and connectivity are particularly effective in physical industries, such as agriculture and manufacturing, making them highly relevant in many developing economies. Transcontinental connectivity with subsea cables, such as Medusa in the Mediterranean sea or the planned 'Far North Fiber’ linking Japan, North America and Northern Europe, binds us together even more strongly.

So, encouraging digitalization in partnership with trusted, reliable actors should be one of the PGII’s most important objectives.

Together with our partners, Nokia is helping get people and businesses online, and digitalizing entire industries, enabling smarter and more resource-efficient energy grids, ports, factories and wind farms.

In countries like Kenya, we’ve partnered with Safaricom PLC and 联合国儿童基金会 to bring broadband access to primary schools, and we’re also working with Liquid Intelligent Technologies to create a pan-African optical network to provide future-ready performance to African enterprises, hyperscalers and mobile operators.

Through our partnership with Afr-IX on the Medusa project, the largest submarine cable in the Mediterranean Sea, we’re connecting continents, strengthening connectivity in both southern Europe and north Africa and boosting economic and social development.

Our purpose at Nokia is to create technology that helps the world act together. We recognize partnerships are the only way to create impact at scale.

As I told the G7 side event, we should be asking ourselves: when any developing economy wants to invest in digital infrastructure, or commit to digitalizing its economy, how can we make sure that G7 nations and their trusted vendors are the ‘partners of choice’?

A big part of the answer is financing.

G7 economies have done tremendous work in getting initiatives like #PGII and #GlobalGateway off the ground.

They are the best channel to make financing competitive, attractive and joined-up. And they can enable impact on a huge scale, across sectors and continents.

But we can still make the financial side of these initiatives more attractive.

From Nokia’s perspective, we would like development banks and export credit agencies from G7 nations to jointly develop attractive financing tools and offers to support trusted and sustainable infrastructure. So, these tools and offers can become more effective.

I’m proud that Nokia is a partner for trusted digitalization. For example, we are working closely with the European Commission to develop Global Gateway digital flagships to benefit countries, industries and communities.

Ultimately, it is about building the digital roads and bridges to take us to a more productive, sustainable and accessible future. And we can only achieve that if we act together.