During its annual conference, Cisco Live, Cisco announced several new offerings and partnerships that support its transition from traditional to AI-ready data centers. 

“Cisco is at the forefront of enabling organizations to harness the power of AI with solutions that are scalable, efficient, and, above all, secure. Our evolving portfolio lays the groundwork for AI-ready infrastructure, designed with the flexibility and protection needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world,” Kevin Wollenweber, SVP and GM of data center, internet, and cloud infrastructure at Cisco, wrote in a blog post. 

Cisco switches have been fully integrated into NVIDIA’s Spectrum-X architecture, the company’s networking platform for AI. According to Cisco, theirs are the first non-NVIDIA switches to work with NVIDIA NICs. 

Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA offers a “full stack of infrastructure, software, and security designed to help enterprises deploy, operate, and scale AI with trust and efficiency,” according to Cisco. 

The Secure AI Factory also leverages Cisco’s AI Defense technology, which provides model validation and enforces safety and security guardrails at run time. 

To further secure networks, Cisco is introducing Live Protect, which provides protection against vulnerabilities before they are patched. “Why wait for the perfect moment to patch when you can outsmart exploits in real-time? Live Protect flips the script on hardware vulnerabilities. When we spot a CVE, we now have a compensating control that your network admins can deploy with a click. No downtime,” Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer at Cisco, wrote in a blog post.  

The company also expanded its range of Cisco AI PODs, which are production-ready AI solutions for edge, RAG, training, and large-scale inferencing. It incorporates NVIDIA’s accelerated computing, is built on Cisco UCS and Cisco Nexus solutions, and also uses Cisco’s partner storage solutions.  

To further ensure that Cisco UCS servers are AI-ready, Cisco announced the next generation of Fabric Interconnects, which provide increased bandwidth, reduced latency, and enhanced scalability. 

“These updates complete Cisco’s full-stack AI-ready infrastructure, ensuring that every layer—from compute to networking—is optimized for AI excellence,” Wollenweber wrote. 

Other updates announced today include:

  • Unified Nexus Dashboard, which consolidates services across LAN, SAN, IPFM, and AI/ML fabrics (July 2025)
  • Cisco Intelligent Packet Flow, which dynamically steers traffic in telemetry and congestion awareness across AI fabrics
  • 400G bidirectional optics
  • New Cisco 8000 series routers
  • New Cisco C9350 and C9610 Smart Switches