The deal between Nokia and Google will see Nokia use a suite of Google Cloud products and professional services.

This announcement follows a few months of effort by Nokia and Google Cloud to design a migration plan that can be implemented on a rapid schedule with minimum business impact.

The two companies have entered into a five-year strategic collaboration, but there was no indication of the form that will take after the migration is completed in 18 to 24 months' time.

"Nokia is on a digital transformation path that is about fundamentally changing how we operate and do business. This is crucial for how our employees collaborate so that we continue to raise the bar on meeting the needs of our customers," said Nokia vice president of global IT infrastructure Ravi Parmasad.

"We are very pleased that Google Cloud, with its engineering and operational excellence, is joining our transformation work to help us deliver on the many goals we have set. Given Nokia's digital ambitions and plans, this is an ideal time for Nokia to be taking this step with Google Cloud to accelerate our efforts; and doing all of this in a secure and scalable way."

Google Cloud president Rob Enslin said "It's an honour to work with Nokia to help modernise its infrastructure on Google Cloud. We look forward to bringing our leading networking, data analytics, AI/ML, and other technologies to empower Nokia to deliver a cloud-first strategy and better serve its customers.

"We are excited to help Nokia revamp its IT infrastructure with our backbone network and our approach to data security, using advanced software-defined networking. We look forward to providing the full menu of our capabilities to help Nokia deliver on its cloud-first strategy and reach its performance requirements."

The value of the deal was not disclosed.