Embracing the AI Era: Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, the ability to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) is essential. At Cisco, we are empowering organizations worldwide to seamlessly integrate AI into their business operations, ensuring they remain at the forefront of innovation and security.  Our collaboration with NVIDIA will mark a significant milestone in this journey, introducing a groundbreaking new AI infrastructure that puts security and flexibility at its core.

A Strategic Leap Forward 

As we announced earlier this year, we are working with NVIDIA to deliver a strategic leap forward in AI infrastructure. Together, we plan to transform the way companies deploy, operate and secure AI Factories—data centers meticulously designed to power AI workloads. Our co-optimized architecture will enable organizations to tailor their infrastructure precisely to their AI needs, without compromising on operational simplicity or security. 

Critical Flexibility and Agility 

Our partnership with NVIDIA is expected to offer organizations unmatched flexibility and agility, embedding security from the application and the workload to the underlying infrastructure. Whether you’re at the beginning of your AI journey or looking to scale existing infrastructure, Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA will provide scalable, high-performance solutions that adapt to your unique requirements. With customizable modular components and proven reference architectures, we intend to empower you to design and deploy AI infrastructure that aligns seamlessly with your business goals. 

The vertically integrated deployment option will be based on Cisco Nexus Hyperfabric AI, and will include: 

• Cisco 6000 Series Switches, using Cisco Silicon One and cloud-managed by the Cisco Nexus Hyperfabric AI controller. 
• Accelerated compute with Cisco UCS C885A M8, based on the NVIDIA HGX platform with NVIDIA H200 GPUs 
• NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs and SuperNICs 
• NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform 
• VAST Data Storage 
• Cisco Optics 

The modular deployment option will feature customizable components, including:   

• Accelerated compute with Cisco UCS C885A M8 and C845A M8 servers, based on the NVIDIA HGX and MGX platforms with NVIDIA H200 GPUs, and managed by Cisco Intersight  
• NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs and SuperNICs 
• Advanced networking with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches using Cisco Silicon One and managed by Cisco Nexus Dashboard  
• Future Cisco switches with NVIDIA Spectrum-X, managed by Nexus Dashboard 
• NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform 
• High-performance storage from NVIDIA-Certified™ partners Pure Storage, Hitachi Vantara, NetApp, and VAST Data 
• Open Source containerization and automation solutions from Red Hat to optimize AI and containerized workloads 
• Cisco Optics 

To reduce AI investment risks, Cisco will offer solutions validated and based on NVIDIA Enterprise Reference Architectures enabling faster, flexible, and scalable deployments with high-performance AI infrastructure. Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA helps enterprise customers to operationalize and secure a robust AI infrastructure for data engineering, AI training and model customization, AI pipeline security, AI inferencing, and compliance for AI models with use cases across industries including public sector, manufacturing, finance, healthcare, and retail.   

Security at Every Layer  

AI infrastructure is inherently complex, and securing it requires a new, holistic approach. That’s why our architecture embeds security at every layer of the AI stack. With solutions like Cisco Isovalent, Cisco Secure Firewall, Cisco Hypershield  and Cisco AI Defense, we automatically expand and adapt security measures as infrastructure changes, providing protection against evolving threats.  This also includes the opportunity to integrate with NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs to improve security across the stack with real-time AI workload threat detection with NVIDIA DOCA AppShield. 

A Unified Vision for the Future 

Our journey with NVIDIA towards a validated and unified architecture is moving swiftly. We are proud to be working toward solutions that cater to the evolving demands of AI factories, ensuring you have the right tools to thrive in the AI era. Our flexible deployment models, including the ready-to-deploy Cisco Secure AI Factory with Nexus Hyperfabric AI or modular solutions, set a new standard for consistency and innovation. 

 According to our recent State of AI Security report, organizations that strategically address both infrastructure and security challenges simultaneously are more agile, scale faster, and derive business value quicker. By integrating accelerated compute, high-performance networking, software, storage, and industry-leading security, we enable you to unlock the full potential of AI, driving transformative outcomes for your business. 

The next generation of global connectivity with 5G Advanced and 6G networks is being developed now, and it’s critical that the industry work together to foster innovation. Cisco is leading the charge in developing mobile core, critical infrastructure, and security technology that is already accelerating AI innovation. By working with NVIDIA and the broader ecosystem to build AI for Wireless into next-gen networks, we will enable dramatic improvements in performance, reliability, and security that will benefit consumers and business customers, while bringing the world closer together.   

At Cisco, we believe in the power of collaboration and innovation to create a more connected and inclusive future for all. Our expanding partnership with NVIDIA will be a testament to this commitment, bringing together the best of our capabilities to revolutionize AI infrastructure. As we continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, we invite you to join us on this exciting journey, embracing the potential of AI to transform your organization and the world. Are you ready?

Congratulations to the teams working hard to make this a reality.

Together, we’re building a more secure, agile, and innovative tomorrow. 

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