Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined Nokia chief executive officer Pekka Lundmark and Nokia Canada president Jeffrey Maddox to announce Nokia’s newly planned research hub in Ottawa.

The research and development centre, estimated to cost around C$340 million, will begin construction in 2023 and is expected to open in 2026. The investment will turn Nokia Canada’s 26-acre campus in Ottawa into a mixed-use commercial hub and is expected to create more than 340 jobs, plus an additional 100 student internship positions in STEM fields.

Ontario has granted Nokia a C$30 million loan through the Invest Ontario program to enable this project, and the Federal government is finalizing plans to contribute up to C$40 million through the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). The City of Ottawa, through Hydro Ottawa, will make a capital contribution of C$2 million for control system upgrades.

Once the hub is completed, Nokia will focus on a broad range of technologies, from 5G, to AI, to cloud software, and digital identity management.

As the primary hardware supplier for Bell, Nokia plays a key role in building Canada’s telecommunication infrastructure. The announcement from the Finnish telecommunications technology company follows a similar new initiative from Ericsson, which recently partnered with Montreal-based universities to conduct 5G sustainability research.

“Ontario is home to a wealth of world-renowned research institutes and top talent who work collaboratively with businesses to create game-changing solutions,” said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, in a government press release.

According to the Ontario government, the province is second only to California in terms of IT establishments in North America. The sector employs more than 408,000 skilled workers in the province, and seven of the top 10 research and development spenders in Canada invest an average of more than C$3.6 billion.

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