By Patrick Kennedy
Publication Date: 2026-10-13 13:00:00
Ahead of the OCP Global Summit, Cisco briefed analysts on AI-infrastructure announcements spanning optics, silicon, systems, and software. For us, the headline is clearly the ultra-dense small form factor, or USFP, a pluggable module Cisco developed with NVIDIA for 400G SerDes lanes, which it says enabling higher-density 1.6Tbps fabrics. Cisco also detailed the Silicon One G300 in first systems, a G302 front-end top-of-rack switch coming in Q4 2026, and the Silicon One A100L aimed at lower-cost 10G/1G out-of-band management switches. USFP will be a big one with both Cisco and NVIDIA behind it and because next-generation pluggable optics are a key part of the 1.6Tbps Ethernet generation. To me, the A100L stood out on the briefing call since Cisco’s custom silicon applied to cost-sensitive switching rather than only the high-performance fabric.
