Cisco [NASDAQ: CSCO] has announced an expanded partnership with NVIDIA to provide AI technology solutions tailored for enterprises. As AI becomes essential for growth, many organizations are still in the early stages of adoption, navigating the unique technical complexity and security challenges of AI-ready data centers. This partnership aims to provide flexibility and choice, addressing the demand for high-performance, low-latency, and highly power-efficient connectivity within data centers, clouds, and between users.
Building a Robust AI Ecosystem
Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO of Verizon, highlighted the significance of a scalable AI ecosystem, saying, “This expanded partnership between Cisco and NVIDIA, just like our Verizon AI Connect strategy and solutions, builds towards accelerating and enabling resource-intensive AI workloads at the Edge of the network.”
The collaboration will leverage the NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking platform, built on both Cisco and NVIDIA’s silicon, to form the backbone for enterprise AI workloads. This partnership aims to simplify networking architectures, prioritizing full-stack solutions that allow customers to optimize their AI infrastructure investments across front and back-end networks.
Optimizing AI Infrastructure Investments
Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco, emphasized the urgency for enterprises to deploy AI quickly and effectively, acknowledging the challenges organizations face in justifying such investments. He noted, “Together, Cisco and NVIDIA are partnering to remove barriers for customers and ensure they can optimize their infrastructure investments to unlock the power of AI.”
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang added, “Advancing at lightspeed, AI will revolutionize every industry. Together with Cisco’s enterprise platforms and global reach, we can help companies worldwide build state-of-the-art NVIDIA infrastructure as they race to transform with AI.”
Comprehensive Security and Technological Advancements
The partnership promises to simplify integration and standardization, providing customers with access to current and future technological advancements, such as adaptive routing, telemetry, congestion control, and low latency from the NVIDIA Spectrum-X platform. Cisco’s broader networking, security, and digital resilience portfolio, including the Splunk data platform, will further enhance the solutions.
As enterprises develop AI capabilities, security becomes critical. Jim Kavanaugh, Co-Founder and CEO of World Wide Technology, emphasized the value of Cisco and NVIDIA’s collaboration, stating, “We are poised to deliver unparalleled value to our customers and help them navigate the complexities of AI adoption with confidence.”
A Stronger Commitment to AI Adoption
The expanded Cisco-NVIDIA partnership aims to simplify deployment and operations, enhancing workload performance and visibility. The companies will focus on delivering the highest-performance Ethernet solutions for AI workloads, with Cisco Silicon One integrated into the NVIDIA Spectrum-X architecture, making Cisco the only partner silicon supported in these Ethernet solutions.
The collaboration is set to help move AI projects in enterprise data centers from prototype to full deployment, traditionally limited to public cloud or SaaS services.
Developing Joint Solutions for AI Workloads
Cisco and NVIDIA are also planning joint solutions for customers, including:
This collaboration between Cisco and NVIDIA is set to accelerate the adoption of AI in enterprises, offering cutting-edge solutions designed to simplify AI infrastructure and maximize performance.