According to TechRepublic, Cisco and Nvidia are completely reinventing data centers for AI with new hardware and shared blueprints that could solve the industry’s biggest deployment headaches. At Nvidia’s GTC event in Washington D.C., the companies revealed the Cisco N9100 series, the first data center switch using Nvidia’s Spectrum-X Ethernet technology, which forms the foundation of their new reference architecture. The design combines Cisco’s networking and security tools with Nvidia GPUs, BlueField DPUs, and ConnectX SuperNICs, all manageable through Cisco’s Nexus Dashboard. Early adopter Blue Sky Compute is already using this architecture to build a global inference platform with data centers on both US coasts and plans for nearly 100 locations worldwide. The partnership aims to reduce infrastructure deployment from months to days, addressing the shocking reality that 95% of companies aren’t getting expected ROI from AI projects.
Sponsored content — provided for informational and promotional purposes.
Why this matters
Here’s the thing – we’ve been talking about AI infrastructure for years, but most companies are still trying to piece together solutions from incompatible parts. The problem isn’t the GPUs or the software. It’s that traditional data centers were never designed for the insane data flows and tight coordination that modern AI demands. When you’re running massive clusters, the network has to move data so fast that no GPU sits idle while others are overloaded. Basically, the entire data center needs to function as one massive computer.
And that’s exactly what Cisco and Nvidia are building. But what’s really interesting is how they’re doing it. They’re not just selling components – they’re providing complete blueprints that customers can copy exactly or mix and match. Nvidia’s Gilad Shainer told TechRepublic they build and test everything internally first so customers don’t spend months debugging integration issues. That’s huge for companies that just want to deploy AI and get results, not become infrastructure experts.
The ROI problem
Remember that MIT report everyone was talking about? The one that found 95% of companies aren’t getting expected returns from AI? Well, this partnership directly addresses that failure. The issue isn’t that AI doesn’t work – we have plenty of examples where it does. The problem is companies treating AI like another IT project instead of rethinking their entire infrastructure stack.
Blue Sky Compute’s CEO Ian Hartley put it perfectly: “Don’t focus on proof of concept, focus on proof of value.” That’s the mindset shift happening right now. Companies are realizing that successful AI deployment requires examining processes end-to-end while thinking holistically about infrastructure. Validated designs like the Nvidia NCP can cut deployment time from months to days, which actually makes ROI achievable. Recent research shows this comprehensive approach is what separates AI winners from strugglers.
What’s next
I think we’re seeing the beginning of a major consolidation in AI infrastructure. The era of DIY AI clusters is ending, and the age of pre-validated, fully integrated systems is here. Cisco’s expansion of their Secure AI Factory with Nvidia shows they’re not stopping at hardware – they’re building entire ecosystems with built-in security and management.
And the timing couldn’t be better. As companies move from experimental AI projects to production systems, they need infrastructure that just works. The Cisco-Nvidia partnership represents a fundamental shift from selling components to selling solutions. For IT teams drowning in complexity, that might be exactly what they need to finally turn AI investments into real business value.
