Inside Nokia’s Strategy: CSTO Nishant Batra on Telecom’s Future, Brand Reinvention, and Betting on Bell Labs 

Sriram Viswanathan: Hi everyone. This is the Tech Surge Deep Tech Podcast presented by Celesta Capital. Each episode, we spotlight issues and voices at the intersection of emerging technologies, company building and venture investment. I am s Ramathan, founding managing partner at Celesta Capital. If you enjoy tech Search, now is a perfect time to hit the like and subscribe button.

And while you're at it, you can leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. If you're just discovering us, visit tech surge podcast.com to sign up for our newsletter and check out the archive of some very interesting past episodes. Today we're exploring the intersection of telecommunications, innovation, strategy, venture development, and all kinds of things that are hardcore deep tech with my dear friend, Nant Batra.

Han is the chief strategy and technology officer at Nokia, and of course a big time veteran in telecom space with long tenures in leadership and executive management at Ericsson and ER and Nokia itself at Nokia. Nhan do you have a very interesting role overseeing everything from technology, architecture to the research that happens in Nokia, bell Labs and, uh, really driving, uh, Nokia's investment strategy, which is what Nokia Growth Partners NGP is part of, and they all report to you, so you have obviously a wide band of responsibilities and experiences.

So I'm really delighted. To have this conversation with you, so welcome to Tech Search. It's a pleasure to have you on this podcast.

Nishant Batra: It's a pleasure to be here, Shina.

Sriram Viswanathan: So this is, you know, Nokia is a very storied, uh, company and for people that don't know it, it really started out in the 18 hundreds as a shoe company and, you know, evolved over time from, um, in, in Finland and grew to be a telecommunication powerhouse in the prior generation.

Right? So in the pre iPhone era, you know, Nokia was the one. Everybody was shooting against because, you know, you had such an amazing, uh, technology, uh, capability in the two G 3G space. Uh, and some would argue that even at the early stages of 4G, you still had some presence and you were known as the company that brought mobile.

Telephony to the masses. Uh, and there's lots that's been written about Nokia's, uh, decline, uh, because of iPhone and all that. But putting that aside, what people don't really appreciate is that Nokia actually is the powerhouse behind most of the cellular networks 'cause you power the backend infrastructure.

So can you talk about what are the types of technologies that Nokia really, uh, is doubling down on? You know, over the years and more so now in the world, which is, you know, evolving to 5G and beyond, what is Nokia's presence? From a technology standpoint? Yeah. In the backend of the network.

Nishant Batra: So today, if you think about, you know, Nokia, you're right.

You know, we've had our highs and lows. The one thing that is the genesis of Nokia is the ability to reinvent ourselves. If you think of, we were the first original hyperscaler in the tech world. You know, the global market share of Nokia handset devices to your earlier point was 40% plus. You don't see that in many industries and globally we were the powerhouse.

But then the low came. When we got disrupted, we didn't really see the hardware, software separation as early. We didn't really look at consumer experience versus technology game.

Sriram Viswanathan: In a way, you would say that that started with the advent of, uh, Blackberry.

Nishant Batra: Blackberry and then really accentuated by the iPhone?

iPhone, yeah, because that. Whole mindset of you don't have to really drive to what the consumer wants. Yeah. You have to drive the consumer to what you think they may want. Right. Nokia sort of was missing that. Right. But then look at the expeditious recovery. Right. It really came through through consolidation of the telecom industry on the network side, and today we operate broadly in four business lines.

The first business line is wireless networks where the. Second largest, uh, sur supplier in this space outside China. And then if you look at

Sriram Viswanathan: this is the core of the network or the, this is radio. Radio access network, radio access network.

Nishant Batra: Right. Then if you look at, uh, fixed networks, which is broadband access over fiber to your house, we are the largest in the world.

Yeah. Today. And, uh, you know, practically, uh, if you were to order broadband, there is a highly. High likelihood that you would get no key at your house. Um, then the third area is software where we are looking at both telecom and enterprise software. That's a smaller but a very successful business for us.

And then the final piece is this is also not very well known, just pure technology. We are the second largest license licensers in the world of technology. So. We build a lot of cellular technology. We also build a lot of audio visual technology. We build a lot of device technology. All of this are licensed to all the big device manufacturers in the world.

Apple, Samsung. They use our technology and we work together with them.

Sriram Viswanathan: And by that you mean really the IP licensing?

Nishant Batra: It's the IP licensing, yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: So in a way, you know, between you Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm, the, the, the triumvirate of IP licensing.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Uh, especially in the telecom area Yeah. Is between the three of you.

But in, uh, in Nokia, you have more than just telecom is kind of what, uh, that you're alluding to.

Nishant Batra: Yeah. Right. I mean. So if you look at the technology licens space, especially for cellular, yeah, you're absolutely like Qualcomm, Nokia, Ericsson, and then there is interdigital, right? Uh, and then there are smaller players.

Uh, but if you look at the technology portfolio that we offer, when we license, it's not just cellular. We offer, we are one of the largest patent holders of H 2 64 compression technologies, video compression.

Nishant Batra: Yes, we have won two Emmy awards as Nokia. Because of audio video innovations that we have brought to life.

Right? So we offer a lot more JS standard essential patterns on cellular. Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: So this is a, again, we are, we're in the. Part of the conversation where I really want to dig into the evolution of the wireless industry itself. And, and obviously lots has been talked about, uh, the evolution from two G, 3G, 4G, and 5G.

And, and in fact, we ourselves have actually done, uh, an episode with, uh, Dr. Andrea. I. Goldschmidt in one of the earlier episodes where we went into the details of that evolution. But from the Nokia standpoint, uh, just paint the picture of, uh, you know, you've got all these varying business lines, all the way from the ran, the software piece, the devices, which you obviously got out of.

You have the IP, and then you have the software ecosystem that you're really enabling. How important is it? That these technologies that you're building, uh, conform to the old model of the telecom industry, which is no longer valid. As obviously as you know, it's all changed, you know, thanks to iPhone and it's really horizontalized if you will.

So what is it that you would bring to the table, uh, that a competitive response cannot do better, uh, you know, whether it's coming from Qualcomm or, or Ericsson or others. You know, the rules of the game have completely changed. Yeah. Right. So how are you adapting to this new world? You know, think of it as, you know, the post apple world versus the pre-app world.

Yeah. How is your strategy and the technologies that you focus on changed in this transition?

Nishant Batra: Now we have been successful at some and less successful at others. What really the iPhone did, it brought. A big tsunami of mobile data. So if you look at the generations of technology in two G, that was a voice technology.

It was meant to connect people to be able to talk wirelessly, right? Then from two G to 3G, there was a lot of conversation around that. We were gonna bring mobile data, really, GSM, going to GPR as an edge and then to wideband, C-D-M-A-S 3G. You may remember some of these acronyms, right? They're now 20 years old or longer actually.

So. Can we put data on mobile? And there were very interesting innovations like the V gateway. The world was still thinking of applications that your service provider will offer to you. So you buy a subscription, they will give you five applications that they've hosted for you. That's what you should use.

What I found did the biggest breakthrough, they said, you don't have to restrict yourself to the applications that are offered to you by your provider. Here's an app store. You can use any application you would like as long as it's on the app store and they all were over the top. That meant that the wireless carrier itself being became a means versus an end.

Right. The wall garden was brought down by the iPhone. What that did was it created such a tsunami of data because now new applications, the world started thinking in terms of apps and using uplink downlink data. And that's just continuous, right? And the technology had to then pivot from, okay, we're gonna connect for voice to just deliver a bunch of data.

Between 4G and then 5G. Every generation will bring down the cost per bit by more than 10 x. Right? Right. So it's, if you look at our generations, the amount of data that has been consumed is massive. You now consume as a consumer somewhere between five and 10 gigs a month. Versus what you were consuming was five megs.

Mm-hmm. About 10 years back. So, and by the way, you're able to afford it, you're not paying a thousand times. Right. Imagine if you were, if you were to be told that, hey, now you're gonna pay a thousand times, a $40 plan will become a $40,000 plan, the world would not have gotten connected. Right. And that innovation is what this industry has brought to the world.

We have continuously pushed the limits of physics and electronics. To bring down the cost per bit,

Sriram Viswanathan: but how? How has this benefited Nokia?

Nishant Batra: This is where we've been as an industry less than successful. Because what happens then? The carriers are biggest customers. They have been basically serving the world.

Their service revenues have gone up, so have ours, but nowhere in proportion to the benefit that we have offered.

Sriram Viswanathan: True. But I, I guess you can also say nowhere. To the benefit that some folks in the ecosystem are getting.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Uh, you know, relative to what you're getting, because you are, you've moved the, the technology puck, if you will.

Yes. To the ran and to the, to the network.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Because you're not in the, in the device. No. And so most of the value is accruing to the guy that is at the edge in margin dollars. Would you agree?

Nishant Batra: The value appropriation. Yeah. As a consequence actually have happened in two areas, is on the application domain.

Right. The Facebooks and the Instagrams or the Googles of the world have appropriated most of the value to their credit because connectivity became easy. Yeah. And so whether you are basically looking at reels on Instagram or TikTok, that would've not been possible if our industry hadn't served them.

But the value appropriation didn't come to the industry. It went over the top. And then the other place, the value of preparation has happened is to your point, the endpoints, the device, and not just the device, the whole ecosystem that Apple's been able to produce. And

Sriram Viswanathan: Samsung and Samsung Android ecosystem.

So tell me, um, you know, you have Huawei, you have Ericsson. You guys are there and Samsung and maybe there are a bunch of other smaller players, you know, so are those the players that you tussle with for a share of the market segment? For the code of the network or the of the ran of the network on the ran.

The predominantly, if you look at in the US, I. Ericsson. Okay. And Samsung, right? Most uh, of the world. There is also the prevalence of who I, but now less so because of the geopolitical divisions the world has seen. Sure. So for example, in India we see a lot of Ericsson, some Samsung. In Japan we see a lot of Ericsson, Samsung.

Samsung. We also see Samsung, of course, excessively in Korea and they've done very well there, to their credit. So. M main competitors, Ericsson and Samsung, Ericsson, Samsung and Huawe Hu is still extremely successful as a company and they have very good position actually in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

They have a very good position in Europe, so a lot of credit to them that they have continued to do well. But these are the players. We also see Zt from China. Yeah. And we see them mostly in, uh, Southeast Asia, Latin America. And uh, now there are. Over the last few years, there were a lot of smaller players, uh, you know, they were behind this open ran phenomenon.

They have not been as successful in the industry.

Sriram Viswanathan: So let's talk about Open RAN for a second. So explain what is Open Ran? Yeah. And more specifically, and there's a lot of talk about how AI can actually, potentially help in the deployment and, and development of Open Ran itself. Can you, can you touch on that, uh, and explain what that is?

Nishant Batra: Yeah. So if you look at radio access networks. Open and AI are, are not synonymous. Yeah. O there are three phenomenons that are happening in ran, uh, and simultaneously open cloud and ai. What open meant, uh, was a bunch of interfaces defined by a certain consortia saying that these interfaces are open. That means we can interrupt between different providers.

Uh, the most key was, it was called the lower layer split. When we deploy a base station, there's something that goes on the base of the tower, which is where the compute sits. It's called the base band, and something that goes on the top of the tower, which is called the radio access, which is the radio frequency.

That's the rf. And when you connect both of them, there's an interface, and that interface was envisioned to be open and open, ran as. The most dominant, uh, requirement from open ran. There are other parts of open RAN that you could also open up towards the northbound orchestration and so on, so forth. So about opening up of interfaces to allow for innovation in different parts of the system.

Separately, there's a phenomenon also called cloud ran, which is basically putting the compute of the wireless network instead of bare metal ASIC on cloudified basically servers. That means you could get a C commercial off the self server, and then you could basically put the workload on it and connect it to a radio.

Sriram Viswanathan: So, so just, we just pause there. So a second. So let's just for the, for the not so technical, uh, in the audience. So in the, in the cellular infrastructure on the tower, on the base of the tower, there's the baseband. Infrastructure.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Under the top of the tower you have the antenna and you have the radio access network.

And you have the rf.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: All in the top of the tower. Yes. And there's compute capability at the base of the tower. That's actually not only processing the radio traffic, but it's also managing the applications, uh, that are coming into that tower from the various devices. No.

Nishant Batra: Now, in most cases, when you actually build a, when you build a network, now this is a little bit complicated.

I'll try to, yeah. You know, break it down. In most cases we, we build something called a distributed run. What that means is that the tower sits on a isolated location. At the base of the tower is a computer. Right. And that is basically called a baseband.

Correct.

Nishant Batra: It is only processing, in most cases just the application for wireless, for radio access.

There's no other application. Uh, then on top of the tower is also computer, but it is prebuilt into a radio, which is rf. And then on top of that there's an antenna, which actually does the trans save from an analog point, point of view. The computer on the base of the tower when you put it on the commercial off the shelf server.

Then it is cloudified because you can actually then compartmentalize or basically cloudify different workloads there. Yes, so that's cloud ran. You could also break the application on the base of the tower up into something we call a central unit and distributor unit, and you could put some of that application actually into a cloud data center.

It doesn't have to be in the base of the tower as long as it's near enough, because if you put it too far. Then you have latency losses and latency losses actually impact the spectral efficiency. You don't get as much outta the spectrum, so that's cloudification of the ran. The third phenomenon is AI ran, which you just mentioned is a phenomenon that has really been talked about in the last 18 to 24 months, is then at the base of the tower.

That computer I talked about. Today is built, most of the networks are built on bare metal asic. Mm-hmm. When you cloudify it, that phenomenon was to take it towards A CPU. When you take it towards a GPU architecture, that means you use GPU as an accelerator versus an asic.

Sriram Viswanathan: Yep.

Nishant Batra: Then it becomes AI ran. Yeah.

So three different phenomenon. Opening up the network for different parts of the network to evolve separately, and interop o ran. Cloudification using CPUs Cloud ran. There are leading operators in the world who have actually adopted that technology called Cloud ran. Verizon being Case and Point have done well there.

AI RAN is a technology that's been more talked about recently and we don't have a commercial deployment of AI ran yet, but there's a lot of now exploration going on in the industry that can this really truly help the wireless workload as well. Can we get more out the spectrum? There is another aspect, and I think you briefly went there.

If there is an opportunity to put more applications on that computer Yeah. And that make that a multi-service and multi application computer, then Cloudification and AI ation really helps. Yeah. And does it help always on the tower? No, but at times you can put a wireless network on the edge. When you put it on the edge.

Let's say, let's take an example. You go to a mine and the mine has. Connectivity needs. Actually, mine is a very good example because it's a tough environment for the wifi kind of environments to exist. So cellular does very well. Cellular is very robust in that sense. You put a cellular mine now. Now the mine wants to have multiple acceleration applications on the edge.

They can then say on the same computer, I could put RAN as an application. I could host other applications, maybe surveillance, maybe productivity, applications, security

Sriram Viswanathan: and all.

Nishant Batra: Yeah. And by the way, mining has a very, very important coordination between the different parts of the mine. And they could put applications related to that.

And for example, at Bell Labs, we have researched something called cognitive digital mine. That application could sit on the same edge. And then you have a multi application hosted server. That's where Cloudification and AI application really prove the point.

Sriram Viswanathan: So, so that, that's, that's very helpful, thank you.

So, so what you're essentially saying is that as these technologies in telecommunications evolve to becoming more complex networks, you know, from two G, 3G, 4G, and 5G and beyond, there's an opportunity for really. Fragmenting the entire architecture of the telecommunications network and look for innovative opportunities in each of the segments, if you will.

And as more applications and workloads come about, you could make a decision about moving some of those things closer to the edge. You can move some of it to the cloud and you can actually have an overarching. Architecture on how you can be protected from, uh, from getting disrupted. If you are the provider of technology, you have many touch points of innovation that you can focus on.

Yeah. And, and so from Nokia standpoint, what is your biggest. You know, as you are competing against Ericsson and Samsung and, and Huawei and others, how are you differentiating yourself? Because everybody is, you know, in the open world, it's hard to differentiate, right?

Nishant Batra: Yeah. Let me, lemme correct you. One place I actually don't subscribe to the fragmentation as much.

The radio access ecosystem is complex, right? Multiple frequencies, network management, base band layer. I believe having a systemic view of radio access is the right approach. Otherwise, when you start breaking it down, then somebody else has to put it together for you. Yes, and that becomes quite expensive because then you're asking your customer saying, Hey, you become the system integrator.

Yeah. Not always appropriate in some cases, maybe, but you want the systemic view. What you do want to do is where the opportunity offers itself for multi application hosting. Especially in large enterprises, you offer the same infra for multi application hosting. That opportunity is brilliant by the way, and more around private networks, on public macro networks.

If there is a tower, which I can see from the window here, if there's a tower, how many enterprises are gonna put application on the base of the tower? Yeah. Not many. Yeah. There's not really a need for creating a, a very wholesome computer at the base of the tower. Right. But at the edge of the enterprise starts to get exciting.

Yeah. So the radio access system has to be, in my belief, kept together because otherwise the verification costs go through much. It's too much.

Nishant Batra: Yeah. But. Opening the network to allow other applications to be co-hosted at the edge of the enterprise. Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. Now, we also have to keep in mind that we have to keep on top of how these technologies on the silicon side improve.

Today, most of the networks are built on bare metal asic. We have to see how the CPU and the GP and the npu. Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Asic you know, just for the benefit of the audience, it's just general purpose. Asic uh, no, it's not

Nishant Batra: general purpose. Uh, and ASIC is a hardened device. Yeah. Which only can do, the application is supposed to do a general purpose, but it's

Sriram Viswanathan: specific to a particular function, wireless application.

Yeah.

Nishant Batra: So when we do an ASIC. It only carries that function, but then we have to keep an eye. If general technologies like a graphic processor unit or a, you know, C-P-U-C-P-U or even an a neural processing unit starts to get really good power and thermal and advantages on acceleration, we are keeping an eye out to all of those.

Should we move from an ASIC to that?

Yeah.

Nishant Batra: Which is better for now. We have felt till date that ASIC does a very, very good job because we specify what we need in terms of hardware accelerators, but we keeping an eye on all of these. We have also been very open to, in the cases I've talked about cloudifying and opening it for other applications.

There we have put the radio access stack. On a general purpose, EPO. Got it.

Sriram Viswanathan: So going back to my question on, on the mar, just the overall market segment sort of picture between the four of you, you know, Samsung Yeah. Alcom, Nokia, and uh, Ericsson. Yeah. And perhaps Huawei as well. How does it shake out in terms of this market segment share between the various players?

Nishant Batra: And so if you look, and we like to look at the market share outside China. Yeah. Uh, outside China, because we don't really have access to that market as much as we used to.

Right.

Nishant Batra: Outside China, Nokia carries a market share somewhere around 25 to 27%. Yeah. And Ericson is bigger than us and who is about the same size, and that's how the market works.

Sriram Viswanathan: And Samsung is a little smaller.

Nishant Batra: Small Samsung's relatively smaller. Yeah. Uh, than both of us. And then there's Zt that rounds the five out. Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: So, so this is a good transition point for me because what you have as Nokia is a crown jewel. Some of the others don't have.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Uh, and you know what I'm referring to, which is Nokia Bell Labs.

Yeah. And Bell Labs has had a unbelievable history, you know, from the Mabell days of at and t to, to loosened. To Alcatel. To Alcatel loosened to then finally. You know, Nokia buying Alcatel loosened, uh, in sort of a roundabout way you ended up owning, uh, bell Labs and, and Bell Labs is just this crucible of innovation and, and truly a remarkable, uh, place for all kinds of technologies to come about.

I mean, there's a long list all the way from semiconductors to laser to radio. To information theory, to, you know, the universe and all of that. Yeah. The Big Bang and everything came out of that. Of course. So now it turns out that, you know, bell Labs reports to you. So talk about, you know, what does that, what does that, uh, what does that mean?

I mean, how, you know, bell Labs is this amazing place of researchers and scientists. How are you looking at that as a, you know, arrow in your quiver to really drive. Uh, an advantage for Nokia from the market standpoint versus really, you know, nurturing it as a, uh, as a place of deep research almost at a, at a, at a national security level.

It's highly, highly important. Yeah. So how do you think about it? You know, you're a Finnish company with a crown jewel in the us, uh, having built all of these technologies. So talk about the labs. Yeah. Uh,

Nishant Batra: you're absolutely right. I mean, it is. It is such a, it's such a, by the way, I don't ever say that Bell Labs works for me.

Bell Labs works for the world. The world wouldn't exist without Bell Labs as we see today. You're right. Transistor was invented there. The wave theory of matter, solar cells, wireless networks, you name it. C. Unix Unix, c

Sriram Viswanathan: plus plus C Keni. Yeah. Yeah. We've all stu, you know, read and studied, uh, books from, uh, people that worked at Bell Labs.

Nishant Batra: Yeah, so we recently had the Bell Labs Centennial event, where Bell Labs, we celebrated a hundred years of Bell Labs last month. There was a little bit of a debate. What's the best innovation that Bell Labs has seen? And there was a lot of people, there were four Nobel Prize laureates in that audience.

There were five tour award winners. Uh, one of the most celebrated, uh, technocrats in the world. Eric Smith was there with us. He said, in his opinion, C is the most important, uh, innovation coming out of Bell Labs. Uh, he himself worked on Lex at Bell Labs as an intern. Uh, so a bunch of things coming out of Bell Labs right now.

What Bell Labs has been very successful, and by the way, bell Labs is not only American because. Bell Labs has grown overseas under Alcatel Lucent and then Nokia, but we have actually 12 sites of Bell Labs around the world. The headquarters of Bell Labs is in New Jersey, is proudly New Jersey. We actually announced that we will move from Murray Hill campus, which has been around for more than 50 years now.

We would actually move that campus. New Brunswick, and we have worked very, very closely with the state of New Jersey to do that. We're even actually now putting a venture studio together with the state of New Jersey and N-J-E-D-A, who have been great partners to us. So what we have started to think about, there's a lot part of Buildups, which is used in the products that Nokia produces, and it gives us differentiators.

When 5G was coming along, and now as we work towards six G, there's a lot of concepts that we will now put into the 60 standardization, which will come out of Bell Labs. Right? And this is how we try to keep an edge in the, I'll give you another example. We've talked wireless a lot, fixed networks, um, you know, optical networks.

There is something called probability constellation shaping, which is sort of the essence of how these, you know, networks work was invented at Bell Labs. Passive optical networks, we are always ahead. Whether getting like Pon gigabit PA to 10 gig PON to 20 gig pon to a hundred gig pon. So Bell Labs, it keeps helping the base business in a big way.

Yeah, that's one aspect of Bell Labs. We call it Core Bell Labs core. Then we call Bell Labs applied. We call it belas, applied and Solutions. They work on more horizontals there. There is technologies like AI Quantum that we are working on in this segment of Bell Labs. And even in core, we actually have, while we invented the transistor, which is basically the backbone of the digital economy today, we actually made a couple of thousand dollars out of that.

You know, so what we have started to do in partnership with you guys, for example, is to look at when we invent something, is there a field of use that we will not. You know, be focused on as a comms company. And then we can say, can we spin the technology off

Sriram Viswanathan: your vision? Yeah. Is that, as Bell Labs comes up with all of these fundamental research, there are, there are areas where the research actually lends itself to very long term.

Yeah. Sort of potential, you know, 10, 20 year plus. Yeah. You know, quantum computing may be in that category. Yeah. Maybe longer. Maybe longer, um, but artificial intelligence is in a different, um, uh, area. Yeah. Or maybe radio on glass. Yeah. You know, new substrates, new materials. Yeah. Uh, how are you thinking about, I know that we're gonna talk about, you know, what Celesta is doing with Nokia itself, but even without that effort that we've got going, you must have a much larger, sort of an objective of commercializing and monetizing all this research.

How are you thinking about that?

Nishant Batra: So. Again, the core part lends it to, so when we look at wireless, fixed broadband, et cetera, roadmaps five to 10 years. So

Sriram Viswanathan: that goes back to the core of the business. You monetize it through your products and services from the core of the business. Correct. But so there are areas that you're working on some new things,

Nishant Batra: right?

New things. So either it could then be a new business for the company. Yeah, or we have actually launched even an internal incubator. The internal incubator now takes it from research to A POC. And that starts to create, what can we do? Should we keep the technology, spin it out? That mindset we have started to produce.

And because researchers want to make sure that they do. This is one thing about Bell Labs I've launched here. They want to do best research for the betterment of the world. This is Bell Labs, in essence. Now, how do you commercialize is not. Often obvious. That's why internal incubator is a very important one.

We have launched a venture studio. We're gonna put a few incubations through the Venture Studio with the state of New Jersey. We've created partnerships such as the one we have today between Salat and us. So we are looking at all avenues of commercializing. Now, of course there is an avenue, avenue of licensing that could also be the case, and we have done that.

In some cases, I'll give you an innovation where we just licensed so. You drive a nice car and it has something called a heads up display. When you drive on the display, there is something that you see in terms of what is the speed that you're driving at and what's the speed limit that you're on. It's on the pane of right glass that you're looking at.

Right? We have built a cheaper and a better way to do that, which has nothing to do with comms. We just license the technology to a partner and say, go build heads up display in the automotive sector. We will just license it to you. We had a technology for data center cooling came out of our optical labs.

Now, data center cooling is massive these days. I mean, this is, it's the thing, right? And we built a phase two cooling methodology. We just license it to a company and said, you guys go monitorize it. We just licensed it. So build companies, incubate, license, license. All of these methodologies we are looking at how do we give.

The world a chance to get a sniff at what we produce at Bell Labs. And I believe the opportunity is limitless because when you start looking at what Bell Labs does, you walk one cab corridor and you come out with 20 ideas. I. Actually, if you go to that building, you don't even know how many corridors are doing what.

Yeah. So it's limitless. Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: So, you know, in a way, um, in the old days, you know, park, you know, Xerox Park was that place where everybody sort of went to, to do cutting edge research, and Bell Labs obviously had that. Do you think that Bell Labs has the same. Um, sort of, uh, you know, uh, draw for leading edge researchers that want to do work on AI or next generation materials or semiconductors or any of it.

You know, do you see that them coming to Bell Labs or would they rather go to an open AI or a Google? Google or West Coast?

Nishant Batra: Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Yeah, because you know, there's a different, uh, you know, dynamic, right? So fully

Nishant Batra: agree now. The answer is yes and no.

Yeah.

Nishant Batra: For anybody who wants to pursue in life, in research, industrial research, we get the top dips because they wanna be part of industrial research.

Right. Anybody wants to be part of commercializing and creating value economy out of it. Yeah. We don't get the first steps. Right.

Sriram Viswanathan: Is that, is that an objective or is that a deliberate choice of not wanting that? Uh, uh. What are you, what are you optimizing for? Eight.

Nishant Batra: It is. I wouldn't say it's deliberate if we had a choice.

Because see, bell Labs used to be part of a monopolistic organization called at and t. Right? Right. And then the funds were limitless and the objectives were, I mean. Very, very broad. Yeah, and of course when you're not in that shape, you have to then focus and really see where you want to be in, right? So some of that has impacted what Bell Labs used to be under the at t banner right before 1984.

Then it has of course evolved al loose loosened, then alca de loosened, then Nokia. So it is not the same Bell Labs as it was 40 years ago. We have to acknowledge that. If you ask a top PhD graduate from a top university that you want to go learn and do research, they will show up at Bell Labs any day of the year.

When we look at our summer intern program and I engage with them actively, we are so selective. We are looking at 50 to hundred interns that will basically come and learn with the top minds of the world. We get top colleges, just anyone and top PhD grads, and we are being selective, and I almost feel bad.

Would you turn down a PhD Who's doing biomechanical science from this university? We have no choice. We can't have thousands, so we are selective. So yes, but not for if somebody was to go to a startup. Then they will go to a startup. Somebody wants to work for a, a commercial economy that Google provides.

Of course, we are not the first pick.

Sriram Viswanathan: So this is, this is fantastic. So now that you, you touched on the, uh, the effort to do spin outs. Yeah. Uh, talk about, uh, our latest work together with you. Yeah. Uh, this is one of your, uh, you know, pet projects and, uh, and babies coming out of, uh, bell Labs. Uh, you've had other projects that have tried to be commercialized.

Hmm. This one particularly holds a lot of promise. So talk about astronaut, the project that Celeste and, uh, Nokia are working together to spin out. So if you could yeah. Elaborate on why you are excited about that technology.

Nishant Batra: So, if you think about one of our largest and most successful labs is our optical lab.

And optical lab produces, I mean, if you look at optics, coherent optics is one of the. Technology that is used standard, by the way, we hold several world records in optics,

Sriram Viswanathan: and you have a lot of patterns there too. We have

Nishant Batra: loads of patterns, and then you start to think about devices and optics together, and this set of teams started thinking about imaging through tomography and when they started looking at.

This, and the particular application we're talking about together here now that we have launched, is actually really looking at the middle ear anatomy right? And the way it says the application was right in front of us, right? You could actually image much more efficiently with the low, coherent light than the way it's being done today.

And when imaging for comms, you could image it for healthcare as well. And when you can image for healthcare today, when anybody goes for an ear scan, the scanner is huge and the scanner itself costs 50,000 to a hundred thousand dollars. The insurance pays a lot outta this, uh, uh, you know, for every scan.

And we said we could build a laser that was a miniature size. We could build a whole system that could be handheld, which is low power, which is low power, and hand it to just. Everybody, you don't have to have a full certification around running a big scanner here, do a scan. And we saw that application together with you and we said it's a field of use.

We will never be successful. We are a comms company. But then. We created a venture with you guys called, and I'm so happy and proud because it serves the purpose of Bell Labs, right? Make the world better through cutting edge research and it serves the purpose as a corporation to commercialize.

Sriram Viswanathan: Well, this is fantastic because we're, you know, Celesta is all about, you know, deep tech investing and this is very unusual for us.

To, to get engaged in, but we're super happy and proud to be associated with you. But I wanna go back to the application that you talked about because, you know, you did make the comment that you are a, you are a, uh, mobile, uh, telecommunications company. But interestingly, there's lots of innovation that is going on in scanning and, and, you know, coherent tomography.

Hmm.

Sriram Viswanathan: And optical co coherent tomography as a field has tremendous potentials in, in healthcare, in diagnosis and all of this. And there are applications of using your, your earphones or hearing aid

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: To actually do diagnostics. Yeah. So are those the sorts of applications that you're envisioning for what the first set of applications might be for, for this, this venture?

How are you thinking about that?

Nishant Batra: Yes. That field of use is very exciting. I mean, the starting application is of course looking at the air anatomy, but you could start thinking of other, other healthcare applications you could use this technology for outside healthcare. There's imaging and scan analysis done in a multitude of industries.

Where would you find light, low, coherent light as a most efficient mechanism to do this? We've offered the world a technology. It's not carrying bits. Is giving you an imaging scan right? Use it,

Sriram Viswanathan: but talk about, uh, your venture business that you have. Yeah. Which is Nokia Growth Partners. Yeah. And that's a separate, uh, you know, corporate venture activity.

Yeah. Uh, how does that fit into this overall strategy? When do you decide to invest in some of these projects? 'cause that is, as I understand it, that is a hundred percent Nokia's money. You don't have other people's money on it. Right? Yeah. So talk about that.

Nishant Batra: We're a hundred percent of the lp. It has, uh, we're on the fifth fund now.

And, uh, we've had this for now, you know, 15 plus years and has, uh, we think of it as it's a strategic corporate. We say, yeah, we, the amount of. Information and knowledge it gets to us what's happening in different parts of the world. For early stage growth stage, we use it as a horizon two and three vehicle.

We, we don't just go invest in companies that we will eventually acquire. We invest in companies that if either we can use, um, for our products, we can use as a co-sell we can sell to. So we start, and if you look at what they invest in is, you know, digital. Uh, 4.0. They invest in cyber sat tech and. All of this, horizon two and three expands what Nokia is really looking at external, but you give

Sriram Viswanathan: them enough autonomy to go do the stuff and, and you are really arms length in a sense, right?

Yes.

Nishant Batra: If you don't do that, you don't get the best partners. And I believe we have a fantastic team running it today.

Sriram Viswanathan: Yeah, of course. And we work very closely with them as well. And this is very similar to some of the other guys that do it. Yes. You know capital G and you've got Yes. Sapphire with SAP and Intel Capital and others as well.

Yes. Uh,

Sriram Viswanathan: but do you, do you see a scenario where you spin that out as a separate entity or bring other people's money in inside that, or is that not, there's a lot of

Nishant Batra: deliberation around. All of that has been for a long time, but for now we're committed to the, the corporate vc, the corporate VC model where I, where is less known.

There's a lot of collaboration between Bell Labs and the vc. So we get a lot of inbound deals, and then they would basically say, what do you guys think when we actually plug in memory into compute like this, is that silicon technology worth something?

Sriram Viswanathan: Well, you have the best due diligence, you know, resource that you can dream of.

Nishant Batra: Yes, yes. Equally, when the Bell Labs guys, they go see, we saw this Web3 R way to communicate, which is decentralized communications. The system that these guys have put together is kick ass. And then they go raising, we say, Hey, we want to invest. Yeah. So that it works both ways. It works both ways. Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: I mean, look at it, I think as a technologist you couldn't have a, a better place Yeah.

Than, uh, the, the seat that you are sitting in.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: Uh, which has access to all this technology. You can sort of see what's coming down the pike. You have the resources and most importantly, you have the. People.

Yeah.

Sriram Viswanathan: And the hardcore scientists working on cutting edge stuff. Yeah. So I, I truly think that you have one of the best jobs that I can think of it exciting in the industry.

Nishant Batra: Exciting. It's exciting. Uh, really exciting. We call it the innovation framework where we have Bell Labs on one quadrant. We have the world venture capital on one, the internal incubator as a con. And then what we also do is we also invest in fund of funds. Yeah. And there we actually look at. It's called the innovation framework, which we believe is gonna be a big engine for propelling Nokia forward.

Sriram Viswanathan: You have an amazing job and you have, uh, you have such a grasp of technology and, uh, and the trends, and I think you have the resources to make some pretty amazing things to happen, and it's been a great pleasure for us to work with you. And in the context of Anu, the spin out that we did. Uh, and hopefully we'll do a lot more.

But before I finish, I have to ask you a bunch of, you know, lightning round questions. Okay. Are you ready for that rapid fire? Yes. Okay. Rapid fire. Okay. So let's, let's go for this. So what technology excites you the most right now? Uh, besides telecom, because I know, uh, seeing some of the things that you are currently under wraps in the labs.

I know you have lots of interesting nuggets there. So what is the one that excites you? My

Nishant Batra: bet, my big bet is, uh, topological quantum computing. Yeah, quantum computing, as many may have think there, that has existed recently. It's a hundred year old phenomenon. It was a hundred years ago when in conference quantum computing was accepted and even before that, by stro danger.

I believe we have some of the best methodology to make this real in the next decade.

Sriram Viswanathan: One leadership principle that you swear by,

Nishant Batra: uh, you don't know what you don't know. Keep your mind open. Great.

Sriram Viswanathan: Uh, which other company, uh, other than Nokia, of course, that you admire most for innovation? Present or past doesn't matter.

Nishant Batra: I actually really think of, uh, the company that really I admire is the company that has democratized the world in terms of silicon is TSMC. Hmm. It has created a digital economy. Without it inventing something and industrializing it is completely different. I think what PSMC has been able to achieve, given the limited economy it came out of,

it's not a big country, and what they have done to serve the world is just it's, it's gonna have centuries of impact. Stunning.

Sriram Viswanathan: What is the one piece of advice you would give any youngster or perhaps yourself, you know, you, you, you are young yourself, but, uh, if you were to start out in technology, what would you give that person an advice?

Uh, today, knowing what you know,

Nishant Batra: be limitless. Don't create artificial limits. They're all in your brain.

Sriram Viswanathan: Han, this has been such a pleasure talking to you. I can talk to you for a long time. You and I have lots of common interests and we are both geeks at heart, and I know that you are a physicist in your heart as well, and you get enamored by all things that happen in Bell Labs.

You can count me to that same list, so it's a great pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for taking the time and being on the

Nishant Batra: podcast. Thank you very much.

Sriram Viswanathan: Thank you for tuning in to the Text Search podcast from Celesta Capital. If you enjoy this episode, feel free to share it, subscribe or leave us. A review on your favorite podcast platform. We'll be back every two weeks with more insights and discussions of all things deep tech. Bye for now.