Cisco (CSCO, Financial) and NVIDIA have announced an expansion of their partnership to enhance AI solutions for enterprises. This collaboration will integrate Cisco's Silicon One with NVIDIA's Ethernet SuperNIC, making Cisco's offerings a part of the "NVIDIA Spectrum-X" Ethernet platform. Notably, Cisco will be the exclusive chip partner for this platform.
The integration aims to create systems that combine NVIDIA chips with Cisco's operating system software, allowing customers to standardize both Cisco networking and NVIDIA technologies in data centers. This move is expected to open new market opportunities for Cisco, simplifying network management for businesses and cloud service providers.
Cisco's CEO, Chuck Robbins, highlighted the pressure on enterprises to deploy AI efficiently and the challenges leaders face in justifying these investments while managing risks. The partnership with NVIDIA seeks to address these challenges by optimizing infrastructure investments and unlocking AI potential.
NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Huang, emphasized the benefits of collaborating with Cisco's enterprise platform and global reach to build advanced NVIDIA infrastructure, aiding companies in leading AI transformation.
Following this announcement, Cisco's stock saw a market-defying rise, peaking at a 2.2% increase and achieving over a 9% gain year-to-date, reaching levels not seen since 2000 amid the ongoing AI infrastructure boom.
In the U.S., AI data center construction is predominantly led by tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon. NVIDIA aims to broaden the application of its technology beyond these major players. The partnership with Cisco, initiated a year ago, targets a wider audience, including large enterprises and government agencies that are significant users of Cisco's networking equipment.
