Cisco has unveiled a suite of groundbreaking innovations designed to accelerate secure and scalable artificial intelligence (AI) across industries—spanning neocloud, enterprise, and telecom. At the center of the announcement is the Cisco N9100, the first NVIDIA partner-developed data center switch built on NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet switch silicon, marking a milestone in high-performance networking for AI.
With the new N9100, Cisco introduces a NVIDIA Cloud Partner–compliant reference architecture tailored for neocloud and sovereign cloud deployments, giving organizations the flexibility to design, build, and secure AI infrastructure at scale. Complementing this is the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, which brings enhanced protection, visibility, and observability across AI deployments. Together, these advancements redefine how companies can deploy AI infrastructure efficiently, securely, and with the performance needed to power the next generation of intelligent applications.
Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel described this moment as “the beginning of the largest data center build-out in history,” emphasizing that AI-ready architectures must overcome today’s limits in power, computing, and network performance. “Together, Cisco and NVIDIA are defining the infrastructure that will drive the next wave of agentic AI innovation—from neoclouds to enterprises to global service providers,” Patel said.
NVIDIA’s SVP of Networking Gilad Shainer added that the collaboration is setting new performance standards for Ethernet-based AI networking. “With Cisco’s Cloud Reference Architectures and NVIDIA Cloud Partner design principles, customers can deploy Spectrum-X Ethernet with the latest Cisco N9100 series or Silicon One–based switches to build open, high-performance AI networks,” he said.
The Cisco N9100 series, orderable before year-end, will offer customers a choice between Cisco NX-OS and SONiC operating systems—providing flexibility for neocloud and sovereign cloud builders. These switches integrate into Cisco’s unified Nexus portfolio and Dashboard for simplified management across different silicon architectures.
Cisco also strengthened its AI portfolio through the Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA. Since debuting at GTC 2025, it has become the blueprint for enterprise AI infrastructure—balancing performance with robust security and monitoring. The latest updates include integration with NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails for cybersecurity, Splunk Observability Cloud for end-to-end monitoring, and validation of Cisco Isovalent for Kubernetes inference workloads. Cisco’s Nexus Hyperfabric AI and UCS servers, now available with NVIDIA HGX B300 and RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs, further enhance flexibility for generative AI and inference workloads.
In addition, Cisco announced its role in developing the industry’s first AI-native wireless stack in collaboration with NVIDIA and telecom partners—laying the foundation for 6G connectivity. This AI-RAN stack merges sensing and communication, infusing AI directly into 5G advanced networks to support the rise of connected devices such as AR glasses, autonomous cars, and industrial robots.
These innovations reinforce Cisco and NVIDIA’s shared mission to make AI infrastructure open, efficient, and secure across every environment. As Patel put it, “We’re not just building networks—we’re enabling the future of AI to run everywhere.”