Nokia’s stock price has surged 92% year-to-date! It has also partnered with defense startup Anduril to launch 5G communications watchtowers

US defense technology company Anduril Industries announced it will bring 5G communications capabilities into its Sentry series systems and launch its latest product, the 5G Comms Sentry Tower (5G CST). Developed jointly by Anduril and Nokia Federal Solutions, the goal of this product is to quickly establish a secure private 5G network for military, government, and commercial missions in remote areas lacking cell towers, power, and network infrastructure.

In fact, Nokia’s stock price has surged 92% since the start of the year, driven in part by its alignment with the technology frontier. Not only has it partnered with Anduril; last year Nokia also received a $1 billion investment from Nvidia at GTC 2025, and the two sides announced they would jointly develop AI-driven 5G and 6G networks. Huang Renxun and Nokia’s CEO have also said together that the two will work to build an AI space network platform based on defense security and innovation needs.

Anduril teams up with Nokia to build 5G communications watchtowers

Anduril said that in military and commercial environments, stable communications have become a non-negotiable core capability. Especially as large numbers of sensors, unmanned systems, AI command platforms, and real-time video data increase, front-line units must be able to reliably transmit data in harsh environments. However, from remote border areas and forward operating bases to missile sites and test ranges—and from commercial energy facilities—many mission locations often do not have existing cellular networks and lack sufficient power and support infrastructure.

In the past, these scenarios have largely relied on tactical radios or satellite communications, but Anduril points out that compared with traditional solutions, 5G offers higher transmission speeds, lower latency, and can connect more devices at the same time—making it suitable for supporting real-time collaborative missions. However, traditional 5G networks are highly dependent on fixed infrastructure, resulting in high deployment costs and difficult build-outs for remote areas. Users either have to endure unreliable communications or rely on third-party commercial or foreign cellular networks that are not sufficiently secure.

To solve this problem, Anduril launched the 5G CST. The system is built on Anduril’s existing Sentry Tower platform, integrating communications, computing, and built-in power supply, enabling deployment without external power or network infrastructure. Anduril claims the 5G CST can establish a high-throughput, low-latency mobile network coverage within a few hours, allowing personnel, sensors, unmanned vehicles, and command systems to collaborate in real time over the same secure network.

The core feature of this product is combining the Sentry Tower hardware that Anduril has already mass-produced and deployed with Nokia’s private 5G technology. Anduril said that Nokia Federal Solutions provides the tactical communications hardware and technical expertise needed for government and defense missions, enabling 5G CST to operate in remote, harsh environments with limited infrastructure.

Modern warfare relies heavily on communications

According to Anduril, each 5G CST can provide coverage over several kilometers depending on configuration, supporting uplink speeds of dozens to hundreds of Mbps and downlink speeds of hundreds of Mbps to over 1Gbps. If the mission area is larger, multiple CST units can be linked together to expand network coverage.

Security is also a key focus for Anduril. The 5G CST uses a private secure network architecture to prevent sensitive missions from depending on unsafe commercial or foreign networks. The system also comes with Anduril’s Lattice software platform, allowing operators to manage users, system health status, and network performance within a single interface—effectively integrating the communications network into Anduril’s existing AI command and sensing systems.

Anduril also emphasized that the 5G CST can operate fully in areas without existing networks and can be deployed for mission use within three hours. This represents the biggest difference from traditional private 5G networks: it is not just “faster speed,” but rather it can break away from fixed infrastructure and complete deployment within a few hours instead of taking months to lay power, fiber, and install cell towers.

In its business model, the 5G CST will be offered as a service. Anduril said users pay for network access services rather than being billed per device or data traffic under the traditional telecom model. This approach can avoid the cost structure of traditional telecom carriers, enabling militaries, governments, or commercial customers to adopt private 5G communications capabilities in a more flexible way.

Anduril said the 5G CST was designed from the outset with high-efficiency mass production in mind, reusing the manufacturing processes, components, and production facilities already proven in the Sentry Tower series. Since the Sentry series first deployed a standard Sentry Tower in 2017, it has deployed more than 400 towers worldwide for missions such as troop protection, border security, and situational awareness. The 5G CST is the communications variant added to this series after eight years of continuous evolution.

From a product positioning perspective, Anduril is not simply rolling out a “military base station” in isolation. Instead, it is trying to integrate communications, sensing, computing, and command and control into a front-line infrastructure package that can be deployed quickly. For military scenarios, this means forward operating bases, border patrols, missile sites, or test ranges can establish secure networks more quickly. For commercial scenarios, energy, mining, and remote industrial facilities may no longer be limited by local telecom coverage.

This article Nokia’s stock price skyrocketed 92% since the beginning of the year—and it also partnered with defense startup Anduril to launch a 5G communications watchtower first appeared on 鏈新聞 ABMedia.