Nokia CEO says AI data centers could be built twice as fast without supply limits

The AI data center boom has a speed limit, and it isn’t demand. According to Nokia CEO Justin Hotard, customers would be building these facilities “2x faster” if supply constraints weren’t getting in the way. Hotard made the remarks on October 5, 2026, during a CNBC podcast. His message was simple. The appetite for AI infrastructure is there. The parts and the power are not. What is actually holding things back Hotard pinned the bottleneck on two specific shortages. The first is memory chips. The second is energy and power capacity. Nokia’s numbers back up the demand story In the second quarter of 2026, net sales in Nokia’s AI and cloud business reached €446 million. That figure doubled compared with the same period a year earlier. The segment accounted for 9.3% of total group sales. Nokia booked €2.8 billion in new AI and cloud orders during Q2 2026. Half of those orders are expected to convert to revenue within the next year. How Nokia got here Hotard took over as Nokia’s chief executive in 2025. Before that, he led Intel’s Data Center & AI Group. Under his leadership, Nokia has pushed to strengthen its networking capabilities for AI infrastructure. The company has partnered ...