By Thomas Richmond
Publication Date: 2026-05-15 01:37:00
Cisco Systems (CSCO) climbed 25% in the past week as investors woke up to a simple shift. AI is driving a multibillion-dollar rebuild of the networks that power modern computing, and Cisco sits squarely in that spend cycle.
That shift could ripple across the broader tech industry. As AI workloads become larger and more distributed, companies may need to upgrade switching, wireless, routing, optics, and data center infrastructure all at once to handle the surge in traffic and low-latency computing demands tied to inferencing and agentic AI applications.
Cisco sharply raises AI infrastructure outlook
Cisco’s AI infrastructure moved materially higher after management said on its fiscal third-quarter report that FY2026 hyperscaler AI orders should reach about $9 billion, up from its prior target of more than $5 billion. This is an 80% jump in guidance. Cisco generated $1.9 billion of hyperscaler AI orders during the period, bringing year-to-date AI orders to $5.3…
