The United States Needs a 5G/6G Player

Strategic case for U.S. majority ownership of Ericsson, Nokia, or both before 6G vendor selections lock in (~2027)

Ericsson EV

$27B

Market Cap $27.5B · Sales CAGR -3.4% (5yr)

Nokia EV

$31B

Market Cap $33.5B · Nvidia $1B (3%) stake

Huawei Reach

169

Countries (dominance in 160)

Bottom Line Up Front

If the U.S. fails to secure corporate RAN leverage before 6G vendor selections are made (starting about 2027), the default future is a world of Huawei-led networks embedding a Chinese AI stack and inference, AI-compute coordination, and quality-of-service preferences into 160+ national infrastructures. That is the kind of dependency that cannot be unwound later.

Telecom Infrastructure

Telecom infrastructure is a persistent strategic dependency. The entire digital economy runs on it for government communications, banking and payments, energy grids, military C4ISR, AI inference over the network, industrial IoT, commerce, shipping, logistics, social media, and emergency response. It also delivers many of the "Autocracy-as-a-Service" (AaaS) functions many countries desire. As "Embodied AI" products take over the economy, they too will run on these rails.

The last U.S. telecom infrastructure company, Lucent, was acquired by Alcatel in 2006. In Robert Atkinson's excellent article on the demise of the U.S. (and Canadian) telecom industry he quotes James Lewis:

"What is amazing is that the United States has seen this problem coming for 15 years. In 2002, the Department of Defense began asking how we would deal with a global supply chain in telecom and the risks this creates. There is a still classified 2003 National Security Agency 'Telecommunications Study' that asked how the United States would manage the risk from globalization. It turns out that the approach we chose was to ignore it."

When Huawei offered allied governments 5G telecommunications infrastructure at prices and with capabilities that Western vendors could not match, the United States responded with diplomatic pressure and, eventually, export controls. Both were partially effective. Neither was sufficient. Several allies, including close partners, installed Huawei 5G equipment anyway, including across Europe; the economic choice was too compelling.

This is a government and manufacturing failure. The United States had no competitive alternative to offer because it had no competitive domestic producer of that infrastructure at the requisite scope, cost, or scale. A country that cannot produce a competitive product at a competitive price cannot practice effective economic statecraft in that domain, regardless of the strength of its diplomatic relationships.

The Strategic Case

As was raised and researched during Trump 45, the U.S. requires a majority-owned radio access network (RAN) player to be a world economic, military, and technology leader. Telecom infrastructure is a persistent strategic dependency that the entire digital economy runs on — government communications, banking and payments, energy grids, military C4ISR, AI inference over the network, industrial IoT, commerce, shipping, logistics, social media, and emergency response. As "Embodied AI" products take over the economy, they too will run on these rails.

Neither Ericsson nor Nokia has the leadership, balance sheet, scope, or scale to compete against Huawei alone. While U.S. 5G/6G players will require incentives and subsidies to compete, they are a "cost of empire" that drags along manufacturing and trade opportunities, provides a bulwark against continued Chinese mercantilism, and positions the U.S. to win today and long-term.

Three Requirements

Acquire Controlling Stake

Incentivize U.S. player(s) to own at least 51% of Ericsson, Nokia, or both — including voting rights.

Install Founder-Driven Governance

Ensure the merged entity operates under a high-agency, founder-driven governance model with explicit authority, incentives, and accountability for long-term R&D and aggressive innovation. New board and CEO.

Integrate into U.S. Economic Statecraft

Integrate these players into intentional U.S. economic statecraft encompassing all levers of government — grant, loan, and subsidy programs, free-market incentives, trade, exports, and tariffs — with country strategies.

Company Valuations (Late 2025)

Metric	Ericsson	Nokia
Enterprise Value	$27B	$31B
Market Cap	$27.5B	$33.5B
Cash	$5.4B	$5.7B
Debt	$4.7B	$4.78B
Sales CAGR (5yr)	-3.4%	-4.0%
Sales CAGR (10yr)	-3.2%	+2.3%
Dividend Payout	~30%	~88%
Key Stakeholder	Wallenberg (25% vote, 9% equity)	Nvidia $1B (3%); Solidium Oy 6%

How

A credible plan requires more than a political statement. The requirements for U.S. control, company revitalization and leadership, and a strong balance sheet shape options.

Acquisition Options

Acquisition by a U.S. Company

Cisco, Tesla, Amazon, SpaceX, Apple

A large tech company able to leverage its overall balance sheet, business, and worldview into these companies.

U.S.-Led Consortium

VC / PE / USG-led

Treasury, DFC, Sovereign Wealth fund co-financing. Public offering. 51% stake or more required, including voting rights.

Take Private

Elliott, Carlyle, Silver Lake, Bain

Take Ericsson private to fix itself, then go public again with new board and CEO.

Multi-Country Consortia

EU / South Korea / Japan / Arab countries

International consortium with U.S. control maintained through majority voting rights.

Why This Matters

The AI Imperative

Telecom infrastructure will be a decisive arena in the AI era. The quality of delivering inference (AI in action) depends on dynamic processing across distance and varying processing needs, as well as consistent bandwidth and low latency, to support real-time AI. Control and optimization reside with the network operator, who can discriminate as desired. China, specifically Huawei, is positioned to drive Chinese-controlled stacks across customer networks — Huawei operates in 169 of 195 countries and holds market dominance in 160. It will be challenging for the U.S. to counter the ease and affordability of network-integrated AI.

Everything Depends on Communications

China's "Autocracy-as-a-Service" offerings — Great Firewall, citizen monitoring — are especially attractive to some countries. These services, supercharged by AI, are part of China's overall economic statecraft package, which encompasses a range of products, services, local factories, exports, and imports. Telecom underpins China's Belt and Road initiative.

Cost of Empire

While U.S. 5G/6G players will require incentives and subsidies to compete against Huawei, they are a "cost of empire" — they drag along a lot of other manufacturing and trade opportunities, provide a bulwark against continued Chinese mercantilism, and position the U.S. to win today and in the long term.

The 2027 Deadline

If the U.S. fails to secure corporate RAN leverage before 6G vendor selections begin (~2027), the default future is Huawei-led networks embedding a Chinese AI stack into 160+ national infrastructures. That dependency cannot be unwound later.

Note on Net Neutrality

Today carriers are legally allowed to treat AI-inference traffic with discrimination. The Sixth Circuit held the FCC lacks authority to regulate broadband as a Title II service, so the FCC's regulatory regime supporting nondiscrimination is not available. Outside the U.S., most countries allow service discrimination. The network owner has an unfair advantage unless broadband is characterized as a Title II service.

The Stakes

A credible plan requires more than a political statement. The requirements for U.S. control, company revitalization and leadership, and a strong balance sheet shape the options. Neither Ericsson nor Nokia can compete against Huawei in their current form.

The window is narrow. 6G vendor selections begin around 2027. Huawei's standards dominance preceded its infrastructure dominance in 5G — and it is the template for 6G. Once those selections lock in, the dependency cannot be unwound.

"While U.S. 5G/6G players will require incentives and subsidies to compete against Huawei, they are a 'cost of empire' — they drag along manufacturing and trade opportunities, provide a bulwark against continued Chinese mercantilism, and position the U.S. to win today and long-term."

Notes

Since about 2010 the U.S. has been trying to kick out insecure 4G/5G vendors (Huawei/ZTE), seed a new, more "open" vendor ecosystem (Open RAN + domestic/allied suppliers), fund a rip and replace program, fund R&D/standards so North America is in the IP lead for 6G (although there are no U.S. RAN companies).
Radio Access Networks are not going away. They become more important, across all frequency bands.
LEO satellites could, in theory, leapfrog RAN, at some point; Amazon and SpaceX lead.
Nvidia bought $1B (2.6%) of Nokia stock. Nokia may be preparing for this scenario.

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