Cisco

Recent news

• Oct 13, 2026

  WebexOne 2026: Key themes and why they matter to network engineers

  Cisco used WebexOne 2026 in Austin to showcase how AI agents, room devices, and unified management are changing collaboration and network operations.

  • Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel said agent traffic is now materially different from chatbot traffic, with agents running 7x24, consuming 450% more network bandwidth than humans for the same task, and generating five times more token consumption than humans after surpassing human usage in February.
  • Cisco also highlighted Cisco Cloud Control as a single management plane, new collaboration features such as Dialog, device and workplace tools including Workplace Designer and Workspace Advisor, and stronger security controls for Webex AI agents; the article also notes Cisco’s campus and branch business has grown more than 20% over the past couple of quarters and references 1.4 billion square feet of commercial real estate up for lease renewal.
  • This is a commentary/analysis piece about Cisco’s event and product direction, not a standalone company press release, although it references multiple recent announcements and demos.
• Oct 13, 2026

  NetBox Labs adds network design templates and AI agents to streamline infrastructure operations

  NetBox Labs has announced new capabilities for its Infrastructure Intelligence Platform at NetBox Evolve, the company’s first conference, and also announced partnerships with Nvidia and Grafana Labs.

  • NetBox Designs, NetBox Analytics, NetBox Agents, and a fully managed NetBox Platform MCP Server were introduced as new capabilities for the platform.
  • The conference was held at Kennedy Space Center, Florida; Nvidia now integrates with NetBox as a native source of truth for Nvidia Configuration Manager in Nvidia DSX OS, and Grafana Labs released an official NetBox plugin in the Grafana catalog.
  • NetBox Labs said it is the commercial steward of NetBox, used by more than 10,000 organizations, and noted the company was spun out of NS1 after IBM acquired NS1 in 2023.
• Oct 13, 2026

  Cisco, Nvidia push ultra-dense networking for Ethernet AI fabrics

  Cisco and Nvidia have announced a new Ultra-Dense Small Form Factor Pluggable (USFP) optical module and a related open industry specification effort for AI fabrics.

  • The USFP module was introduced at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit 2026 and is designed to support 400 Gb/s-per-lane electrical signals, scaling to 12.8T capacity and improving bandwidth density for Ethernet AI fabrics.
  • Cisco said the technology preserves field serviceability and familiar deployment practices; Cisco and Nvidia also plan to create an open industry specification through a community-led multi-source project. Cisco separately announced the Silicon One G302 top-of-rack switching chip, with 102.4T capacity, direct-to-chip liquid cooling integration, and shipping planned before the end of 2026.
• Oct 13, 2026

  AMD unveils Helion as agentic AI fuels demand for data center CPUs

  AMD has announced Helion, an open blueprint for AI data center racks designed to give CPUs a larger role in AI agent workloads and to let customers configure GPU resources around inference needs.

  • The architecture is based on Open Compute Project (OCP) specifications and supports CPU-only racks with sixth-generation EPYC processors and up to 32,768 cores, as well as enterprise racks with up to 16 Instinct MI350P GPUs.
  • AMD cited up to 102 Tbps networking bandwidth as a planned rack capability, said Helion supports air and liquid cooling, and plans to contribute the specification to OCP; partner-developed rack configurations are expected in November 2026.
  • Infrastructure vendor support statements were published from Cisco, Dell Technologies, HPE, and Lenovo; analysts said the design could improve CPU/GPU scaling and challenge Nvidia, but noted software maturity, ROCm compatibility, network latency, and total cost of ownership remain key hurdles.
• Oct 12, 2026

  It’s not your model — AI has a data movement problem

  The article argues that enterprises scaling AI are often facing network and connectivity problems rather than compute or model failures.

  • It cites recent research showing 59% of organizations report bandwidth issues and 53% report latency challenges, and says AI agents can generate up to 450% more network traffic per task than humans.
  • The piece references Cisco Live, Azure, and Google Cloud as examples, and emphasizes that performance problems often emerge across Latin America, Asia, and Africa when AI deployments move beyond initial local testing.
• Oct 5, 2026

  From automated response to reasoning: Building confidence in AI-driven NetOps

  BackBox VP of product and engineering Richard Phillips argues for a governed, human-in-the-loop approach to probabilistic automation in network operations.

  • The article explains how AI-driven automation can combine probabilistic reasoning with deterministic execution for network resilience, including vulnerability prioritization, remediation, backups and updates.
  • It cites the $15,000 per minute average cost of downtime and says teams should test discrete automations in labs, set exception-based alerts and checkpoints, and validate each step before production deployment.
• Sep 21, 2026

  U.S. Broadband Capex Hits $92.6B in 2025 as Fiber Fuels AI-Era Networks

  USTelecom has reported that U.S. broadband providers invested $92.6 billion in communications infrastructure in 2025. The piece also references Google’s 2026 spending on data centers and AI compute capacity.

  • 2025 broadband capex reached $92.6 billion, up 3.4% from 2024; cumulative investment since 1996 is nearly $2.3 trillion.
  • The report says providers accelerated fiber deployment, completed C-band and 5G buildouts, expanded fixed wireless access, and modernized networks; it also cites Cisco projecting 6.6-fold growth in consumer-driven network traffic by 2035.
  • USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter called for permitting reform from Congress, while the article notes Google is spending $205 billion in 2026 on data centers and AI compute capacity and that Big Tech’s total 2026 capex could reach $800 billion.
• Sep 9, 2026

  Cisco bundles fixes for multiple vulnerabilities, some critical, into one patch

  Cisco has announced software updates to fix more than seven IOS XR Linux-based router vulnerabilities, including two critical issues rated 9.8 severity.

  • Cisco said its engineering team found multiple internally-discovered vulnerabilities affecting all IOS XR releases, including IOS XR7, with no known workarounds and no known active exploitation.
  • The two critical CVEs, CVE-2026-20274 and CVE-2026-20279, involve lifetime resource control issues; Cisco said customers should use show version, apply SMUs or upgrade to fixed releases, and future fixed releases will be 26.2.2 and 26.3.1.
• Sep 4, 2026

  When analyst benchmarks miss the mark: Why Nvidia doesn’t fit Forrester’s data center matrix

  Zeus Kerravala argues that Forrester’s latest Data Center Networking Solutions Wave misjudges Nvidia by applying a legacy enterprise framework to modern AI networking.

  • Kerravala says Forrester gave Nvidia a 1 out of 5 for vision and only 2% weight to AI infrastructure support, even though Nvidia scored 5.0 in the AI Infrastructure category.
  • He says Nvidia’s networking business is built around high-throughput AI fabrics, including Ethernet for AI, scale-across topologies, co-packaged optics, and integrated DPUs; he also notes Nvidia’s networking run rate is more than $11 billion.
  • This is an opinion/commentary article, not a company announcement. It references the Forrester Wave for Data Center Networking Solutions Q3 2026 and discusses how buyers should use more specialized evaluation frameworks for AI and high-performance compute.
• Sep 4, 2026

  HPE’s record Q3: AI infrastructure, networking demand drives growth, but supply constraints tap the brakes

  HPE reported a record third-quarter result driven by AI, networking, and server demand.

  • HPE revenue reached $12.2 billion, up 34% year over year; CEO Antonio Neri said the company booked more orders than any prior quarter and set a record backlog.
  • HPE said AI systems orders of $2.4 billion rose over 30% sequentially; CFO Marie Myers said HPE expects networking revenue to grow 13%-17% and cloud and AI revenue to grow 14%-18% in fiscal 2027.
  • Neri said routing and data center switching demand accelerated, while supply constraints in DDR5, DDR4, NAND, and high-bandwidth memory continue to limit fulfillment; HPE is seeking multi-year supply agreements and offering alternative configurations.
• Sep 2, 2026

  VMware by Broadcom: Product, service and support news

  Broadcom has announced multiple VMware-related product and support changes, including a new AI infrastructure stack and a slower release cadence.

  • At VMware Explore in Las Vegas on Aug. 31, 2026, Broadcom announced the VMware AI Factory, a new packaged AI infrastructure stack, plus a new agent governance platform and an open-source security portfolio.
  • Broadcom also said enterprises will be able to run production AI on-premises with VMware Private AI Cloud; separately, VMware’s release cycle is shifting from 2 years to 3 years, and VCF 9.0 support is being extended to 6 years instead of 5.
  • The article is a timeline and analysis of Broadcom’s VMware strategy since the May 2022 acquisition announcement; it also references earlier deals, lawsuits, licensing changes, layoffs, and other market reactions.
• Sep 2, 2026

  NTT DATA launches AI Factory Lab in Saudi Arabia

  NTT DATA has announced the launch of an AI Factory Lab in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, scheduled to open later this month.

  • The lab will support executive briefings, AI strategy workshops, and hands-on demos for use cases including employee productivity, customer experience, cybersecurity, networking, and software development.
  • The lab will showcase how organizations can build, deploy, secure, govern, and scale AI workloads on an enterprise-grade foundation, in collaboration with Cisco and NVIDIA.
  • Hani Nofal, Executive Head of Infrastructure Solutions in Middle East and Africa at NTT DATA, said the lab is meant to help clients identify the right use cases, deploy AI securely, and scale with confidence.
• Aug 31, 2026

  Private AI cloud, agentic infrastructure dominate VMware Explore

  Broadcom has announced VMware AI Factory, AgentMinder, and new TrueSource open-source security services at VMware Explore in Las Vegas.

  • Broadcom said VMware AI Factory is a packaged AI infrastructure stack built on VMware Cloud Foundation, supporting Nvidia and AMD accelerators, certified servers from Cisco, Dell, Lenovo, Supermicro, and more than 150 models.
  • Broadcom also announced AgentMinder for AI-agent governance, upcoming AI gateways and agentic security features across VCF Private AI Services, Tanzu Platform, Avi Load Balancer, and vDefend, plus TrueSource Trusted Artifacts and TrueSource Data Services for open-source software security; several offerings are available today, while others are coming later this year or were already part of VCF.
  • The article is a news report and analysis based on Broadcom statements and media briefings, not a standalone company press release; it also mentions Flexential building offerings on top of VMware AI Factory early next year.
• Aug 25, 2026

  Cisco bulks up its AI infrastructure portfolio with Supermicro’s liquid-cooled servers

  Cisco has announced that it will add Supermicro’s liquid- and air-cooled compute systems to its AI infrastructure portfolio as part of Secure AI Factory with Nvidia.

  • The expanded offering will include high-density Supermicro compute solutions, validated and sold through Cisco’s Secure AI Factory with Nvidia architecture.
  • Cisco said the systems will support rack-scale and dense GPU deployments, including rack-to-fabric liquid cooling and interoperability with Cisco N9000 Series Switches; availability is planned for October.
  • Cisco also described the architecture as incorporating Cisco UCS servers powered by Nvidia GPUs and Blackwell Servers, Cisco networking and security tools, Splunk, and Nvidia AI Enterprise software.
  • The article is a news report summarizing Cisco’s statement and FAQ, not a transcript or opinion piece.