Nokia Bell Labs believes in the power of collaboration with partners from academia, industry, start-ups and entrepreneurs.
The recent groundbreaking ceremony for Nokia Bell Labs’ 10-story, 370,000-square-foot headquarters at HELIX NJ in New Brunswick has not only been noted for marking a new era at Nokia Bell Labs, but for its anticipated broader impact on the state’s innovation ecosystem at a time when 12 separate state-designated Strategic Innovation Centers (SICs) have begun populating the landscape, including the NJ AI Hub in Princeton.
The Nokia Bell Labs Backdrop
“For 100 years, Bell Labs has continued to break new ground in science, technology and innovation,” Thierry E. Klein, president of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia, tells Jersey Tech and Innovation. “… we are not just breaking ground on a new building; we are setting the foundation for the next century of innovation and discovery.”
While Bell Labs is famous for its 20th century inventions including the transistor, cellular telephone concepts as well as the UNIX operating system and C programming language, Nokia Bell Labs has also had continuous recent innovations. These include advanced 6G technology research as well as developments in AI-powered robotics for applications such as healthcare facilities and factories. The firm is additionally renowned for sophisticated wireless developments such as Distributed Massive MIMO for 5G-Advanced networks, and for breakthrough sensing technologies.
Nokia Bell Labs Headquarters
Nokia Bell Lab’s upcoming headquarters is specifically designed for high-tech innovation: Replete with varying slab-to-slab heights on select floors meant to accommodate experimentation, the site will be a node for cutting-edge AI and software systems, next-generation networks, industrial automation, and quantum and optical research.
With the building’s completion slated for late 2027, Nokia Bell Labs will ultimately relocate approximately 1,000 employees from its current Murray Hill site, where it has been situated for more than 80 years (upon considering dozens of locales throughout the United States, in 2023 the company chose the four-acre New Brunswick HELIX NJ Innovation District, and in 2025 was awarded a $103 million New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) Aspire tax incentive package). The project’s developer is SJP Properties, and the HELIX Master Developer is DEVCO (New Brunswick Development Corporation).
The Innovation Landscape
The new headquarters will be anything but siloed, with anticipated wide-ranging innovation impacts for New Jersey. Nokia Bell Labs will, again, be in the sprawling HELIX NJ, which is itself designed for collaborative innovation and will ultimately consist of three major buildings:
H-1 – With expected completion in the coming year, “H-1 will be comprised of translational research space, the Rutgers medical school, and the New Jersey Innovation Hub.” The latter is an incubator and coworking space supporting early-stage and established companies in the life sciences as well as healthcare industries.
H-3 is slated for work and office spaces in lower floors with residential housing on the upper levels.
Nokia Bells Labs will occupy building H-2.
Strong Collaboration
The local ecosystem - by all accounts - will be vibrant.
Collaboration is not a transaction
“It is a shared belief that together we will be more innovative, more creative and more productive. Nokia Bell Labs believes in the power of collaboration with partners from academia, industry, start-ups and entrepreneurs.”
The activity is part of an even broader design: HELIX NJ is one of 12 aforementioned Strategic Innovation Centers (SICs) that are either built or planned throughout the state.
With funding of $145 million stemming from both state budget allocations as well as the New Jersey Economic Development Recovery Act (ERA), SICs are facilities that foster entrepreneurship, innovation and research and development (R&D). They include, for example, the Aerospace Innovation Center (AIC) in Egg Harbor Township and NJII Venture Studio at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).
New Jersey’s Plight
New Jersey has faced its share of innovation-related challenges. While the state is known as the “Medicine Chest of the World” and is replete with biopharmaceutical companies as well as a high-tech past, it has struggled to compete with innovation juggernauts such as New York City and Boston, lagging in terms of both new startups and venture capital funding.
With any luck, Nokia Bell Labs’ new headquarters – in tandem with other endeavors statewide – will help change that equation.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy concludes, “By announcing its new state-of-the art facility in the HELIX, Nokia builds upon its remarkable legacy in the Garden State, a legacy that will continue to produce cutting-edge technologies and contribute to our burgeoning innovation ecosystem. What’s more, Nokia’s presence in New Brunswick’s growing tech hub will generate good-paying jobs and further solidify the city’s standing as a regional leader in the innovation economy.”
