“COREnect gathered a large spectrum of ICT value chain players along with worldwide recognised technical experts” - An interview with Mohand Achouche (Nokia)

III-V Lab

 III-V Lab is an industrial research laboratory created in 2004 by Nokia and Thales and was extended to CEA Leti in 2010. III-V Lab in CORENECT project represents its mother company Nokia.

Nokia

We create technology that helps the world act together. Only Nokia offers a comprehensive portfolio of network equipment, software, services and licensing opportunities across the globe. With our commitment to innovation, driven by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, we are a leader in the development and deployment of 5G networks while also leading research in 6G. 

Our communications service provider customers support more than 6.4 billion subscriptions with our radio networks, and our enterprise customers have deployed over 1,300 industrial networks worldwide. Adhering to the highest ethical standards, we transform how people live, work and communicate. 

Nokia Bell Labs is the world-renowned industrial research arm of Nokia. Over its nearly one-hundred-year history, Bell Labs has invented many of the foundational technologies that underpin information and communications networks and all digital devices and systems. This research has resulted in 9 Nobel Prizes, three Turing Awards, three Japan Prizes, a plethora of National Medals of Science and Engineering, as well as three Emmys, two Grammys and an Oscar for technical innovations. 

Mohand Achouche received his PhD degree in material science from Paris VII University in 1996. He joined Alcatel (now Nokia) in 2000 working on various research projects. From 2015 to 2019, he was the managing director of III-V Lab a JV between Nokia, Thales and CEA. He contributed to the creation of various III-V Lab’s spin-offs and leaded multiple industrial transfers. Since 2019 he is strategic advisor on devices / 6G and high-speed business relationship within Nokia Bell Labs.

 How did you join COREnect? What is your role in the project?

I have been involved in the COREnect proposal initiative since the beginning of the summer of 2019, together with my colleague Werner Mohr, who handed-over this great proposal to me a few months before his retirement. Nokia is a global leader in connectivity, including wireless and wireline, and has played a critical role in COREnect’s strategy, vision and industry roadmap. I’ve had the privilege of contributing to and reviewing the initial and intermediate roadmaps delivered to COREnect stakeholders.

What are your expectations from a project of this nature for your organisation?

During the last decade, we have seen a major shift in the connectivity business. Traditionally, telecom companies have sourced their CPUs and other chip business from specialised vendors. Today, many ICT companies are building their own chips to differentiate on costs, additional features, sustainability (power consumption), etc. As a world leader in telecommunication infrastructure and services, Nokia is at the heart of this major shift and wants to be able to reconnect the various ecosystems, including microelectronics, to unleash the potential that 6G will offer in the future. We provide our connectivity vision in COREnect to help identify gaps, and we also contribute by building realistic roadmaps in relation to HEXA-X, the EC backed 6G flagship program that Nokia has the privilege to coordinate.

In your view, could COREnect impact the European strategy in microelectronics and connectivity in the next 10 years, and how?

The COREnect project was established in a complex geo-strategic context, characterized by tension in the semiconductor supply chain, which only deteriorated during the Covid crisis due to a stronger than expected demand for internet technologies. Among other initiatives, COREnect gathered a large spectrum of ICT value chain players along with worldwide recognised technical experts to assemble R&I roadmaps and propose critical strategic recommendations that will help crystalise initiatives to associate microelectronics and telecommunications in the coming years. We were very pleased with the EU Chips Act a few months before the project ends, since it creates an exceptional and unprecedented competition regime in the semiconductor sector, while also providing a key enablement instrument for the benefit of the ICT sector.