EXCLUSIVE-Nokia to gain unconditional EU nod for $2.3 bln Infinera deal, sources say

Adds European Commission declines comment, Nokia's reference to deal during financial report on January 30

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Nokia NOKIA.HE is set to secure unconditional EU antitrust clearance for its $2.3 billion acquisition of U.S. optical semiconductors and networking equipment maker Infinera INFN.O, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

Nokia announced the deal in June last year, a move that would make it the second largest vendor in the optical networking market with a 20% share, behind Huawei, which is benefiting from the minimal presence of Western companies in China.

The acquisition will allow Nokia to sell more equipment to big tech companies such as Amazon AMZN.O, Alphabet GOOGL.O and Microsoft MSFT.O which are investing billions of dollars in building new data centres to service the artificial intelligence boom.

The European Commission, which is scheduled to finish its preliminary review of the deal by February 26, declined to comment.

Nokia referred to its financial statement released on January 30 where it said it expected to close the deal in the first quarter of this year.

Infinera has a leading position in intra data centre communications, which refers to server-to-server communications inside data centres. It gets about 60% of its business from the United States.