Cisco and NVIDIA have announced that they are deepening their partnership around AI infrastructure. Among other things, Cisco's Silicon One chip will be part of NVIDIA's Spectrum-X platform.
A recent Cisco survey of business leaders found that 97 percent of respondents view AI projects positively, while only 1.7 percent feel fully prepared for the transition. In the same survey, leaders identified three key factors holding them back and slowing down progress: a significant need to modernize infrastructure, questions about safe and responsible AI use from a cybersecurity perspective, and the need for the right skills and competencies to implement and get the most out of AI.
“Until now, most of the conversation about AI has focused on chips, computing power, and large language models. However, as organizations begin to tackle AI workloads, the challenge of connecting computing resources and data—both in and between data centers and clouds – to be the frontier for AI innovation. In this way, the network becomes the key to successfully scaling AI in the enterprise,” said Jeetu Patel, EVP and Chief Product Officer at Cisco.

Cisco and NVIDIA want to jointly contribute to facilitating the transitions and are now deepening their partnership further. This involves several expanded and new initiatives for the joint development of Network solutions that meet the demands of the AI transition.
The collaboration includes, among other things, NVIDIA will enable Cisco Silicon One to become part of the NVIDIA Spectrum-X networking platform for Ethernet. Cisco thus becoming the only partner whose chip is included in NVIDIA Spectrum-X.
Cisco will also build systems that combine NVIDIA Spectrum chip with Cisco OS software, allowing customers to simultaneously standardize on both Cisco networking and NVIDIA technology in the data center, with a wide range of AI use cases and applications.