New solutions with NVIDIA are highly adaptive
and scalable for the evolving AI demands of enterprises
News Summary:
- Cisco introduces plug-and-play use case and industry-specific
AI PODs, making it easier for partners to sell and customers to
deploy AI infrastructure
- Company also expands UCS portfolio with new AI server family
for NVIDIA accelerated computing
- With an upgraded portfolio, powered by new 800G switches, Cisco
highlights strategy to accelerate enterprise AI adoption by
offering open, scalable and simplified path to AI
infrastructure
LOS
ANGELES, Oct. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CISCO
PARTNER SUMMIT -- Today, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced
new additions to its data center infrastructure portfolio: an AI
server family purpose-built for GPU-intensive AI workloads with
NVIDIA accelerated computing, and AI PODs to simplify and de-risk
AI infrastructure investment. They give organizations an adaptable
and scalable path to AI, supported by Cisco's industry-leading
networking capabilities.
"Enterprise customers are under pressure to deploy AI workloads,
especially as we move toward agentic workflows, and AI begins
solving problems on its own," said Jeetu
Patel, Chief Product Officer, Cisco. "Cisco innovations like
AI PODs and the GPU server strengthen the security, compliance, and
processing power of those workloads as customers navigate their AI
journeys from inferencing to training."
The exponential growth of AI is transforming data center
requirements, driving demand for scalable, sustainable,
programmable and secure networks. According to McKinsey, generative
AI will add $2.6T to $4.4T per year to global economic output with
enterprises at the forefront of value creation. But according to
the Cisco AI Readiness Index, 89% of IT professionals plan to
deploy AI workloads within the next two years but just 14% of
organizations report their infrastructure is ready for AI today.
Cisco Breaks Down Barriers to AI Adoption
Cisco's new
solutions provide customers with the infrastructure pieces they
need to accelerate their AI adoption, no matter their current
starting point. These innovations extend customers' existing
infrastructure, enabling customers to grow and innovate without
adding complexity. The new solutions are managed by Cisco
Intersight, which enables centralized control and automation,
simplifying everything from configuration to day-to-day
operations. New solutions introduced today include:
- Accelerated Compute for the AI Era: Cisco is adding to
its UCS AI compute portfolio with the new UCS C885A M8 servers
purpose-built for GPU-intensive AI workloads. These high-density
servers can tackle the most demanding AI training and inference
workloads by harnessing the power of the NVIDIA HGX
supercomputing platform with NVIDIA H100 and H200 Tensor Core GPUs.
Each server includes NVIDIA NICs or SuperNICs to accelerate AI
networking performance, as well as NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs to
accelerate GPU access to data and enable robust, zero-trust
security. This is Cisco's first entry into its dedicated AI server
portfolio and its first eight-way accelerated computing system
built on the NVIDIA HGX platform.
- Plug-and-Play AI Infrastructure: Cisco is introducing AI
PODs, infrastructure stacks tailored for specific AI use cases and
industries. Combining compute, networking, storage, and cloud
management, these stacks enable greater scalability and efficiency.
Built on the foundation of Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs), the PODs
provide customers with an established starting point, easily
adaptable to meet their specific needs. The pre-sized and
configured bundles of infrastructure eliminate the guesswork from
deploying AI inference solutions – from edge inferencing to
large-scale clusters with NVIDIA accelerated computing. These
solutions include NVIDIA AI Enterprise, an end-to-end, cloud-native
software platform that accelerates data science pipelines and
streamlines AI development and deployment. This means faster time
to value, consistent performance and reduced risk for AI
projects.
These new solutions join Cisco's already extensive portfolio of
AI and data center infrastructure, including Cisco's recently
introduced 800G Nexus switching platforms powered by the Cisco
Silicon One G200 chip, and the recently announced Cisco Nexus
HyperFabric AI solution with NVIDIA.
Building an AI Ecosystem with Partners
As Cisco's
customers and partners continue to navigate an ever-changing and
progressing AI market, Cisco is committed to working across the
industry to drive innovation and growth. By leaning on the full
power of Cisco's networking, security and observability strengths,
and honoring customers' unique journeys to AI, Cisco and its
partners can deliver true business value to customers.
"A new era of intelligent generative AI applications is driving
transformation for enterprises worldwide. With the debut of its
dedicated AI server portfolio, AI PODs, and expanding family of
systems with full-stack NVIDIA accelerated computing and software,
Cisco is advancing the infrastructure enterprises can use as a
foundation for growth in the age of AI." - Bob Pette, vice president, Enterprise Platforms
at NVIDIA
"AI is set to fundamentally change how we do business, but it
requires scaling that only robust infrastructure can provide to
support accelerated computing demands. We're excited about Cisco's
efforts to make AI easier for our customers to stand up and manage.
With these new solutions, Presidio is able to bring customers new
solutions that fit within their existing infrastructure, are easy
to deploy and manage, and provide the right infrastructure for
their AI journeys." - Rob Kim, CTO,
Presidio
"Cisco launching these new platforms couldn't come at a better
time as many of our customers are working to figure out the role of
AI in their business and how they can capitalize on the technology.
CDW is excited about Cisco's new AI infrastructure and security
platforms to drive business outcomes securely with our joint
customers." - Conor Waddell, SVP
Integrated Technology Solutions, CDW
"One of the challenges we see for customers is the complexity of
the AI infrastructure stack. There are many options and the
technology is moving very rapidly. Cisco's solutions like the AI
PODs will simplify and accelerate AI adoption for our customers
allowing them to focus on the AI outcomes they are seeking for
their organizations. At WWT we are excited to work with Cisco to
showcase the Cisco AI PODs in our AI Proving Ground Lab and
accelerate the AI journey for our mutual customers." - Neil Anderson, VP Cloud, Infrastructure, and AI
Solutions, World Wide Technology
Availability
- The Cisco UCS C885A M8 is now orderable and expected to ship to
customers by the end of this year
- The Cisco AI PODs will be orderable in November 2024.
- Payment solutions are available for these products to enable
partners to lower balance sheet debt, reduce customer credit and
payment risk, and improve cash flow and profitability. For more
information, please visit cisco.com/go/paymentsolutions.
Additional Resources:
- Executive blog post: Power Your GenAI Ambitions with New Cisco
AI-Ready Data Center Infrastructure
- For more information on Cisco Partner Summit, please visit The
Newsroom
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that
securely connects everything to make anything possible. Our purpose
is to power an inclusive future for all by helping our customers
reimagine their applications, power hybrid work, secure their
enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their
sustainability goals.
Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on X (formerly
Twitter) at @Cisco.
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A
listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at
http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks
mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of
the word 'partner' does not imply a partnership relationship
between Cisco and any other company.
Forward-Looking Statements: This release may be deemed to
contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe
harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. These statements include, among others, statements
regarding Cisco's future strategic investment plans to expand and
develop secure and reliable AI solutions. Readers are cautioned
that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may
differ materially from actual future events or results due to a
variety of factors, including, among other things, the ability of
Cisco to achieve expected benefits of its investments, business and
economic conditions and growth trends in its customer markets and
various geographic regions, increased competition, global economic
conditions and uncertainties in the geopolitical environment and
other risk factors set forth in Cisco's most recent reports on Form
10-K and 10-Q, respectively. Any forward-looking statements in this
release are based on limited information currently available to
Cisco, which is subject to change, and Cisco will not necessarily
update the information.
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SOURCE Cisco Systems, Inc.
