Cisco Sees Multi-Year Networking Super Cycle Driven by Agentic AI
Cisco executives told investors at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference that AI is driving a significant boom in network demand, leading to strong growth for the company. Cisco's President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel and Chief Financial Officer Mark Patterson said that agentic AI is still in its early stages, with adoption below 2% in both enterprise and consumer markets, but is already having a major impact on traffic, bandwidth, and security needs.
The company reported $9.3 billion in hyperscale AI orders for the year, including $4 billion in the latest quarter, up sharply from $2.3 billion two years ago. Networking revenue has posted eight straight quarters of double-digit growth, while overall orders rose 35% in the past two quarters.
Cisco is positioning itself to take advantage of a multi-year networking super cycle, with no clear end in sight. The company expects trillions of agents to operate continuously, creating demand for more networking capacity. Cisco's Silicon One program has advanced to the G300 chip, which it described as having close to a quarter trillion transistors on a 100-millimeter package substrate.