Cisco is expanding its data center portfolio with new AI servers and AI PODs. These solutions aim to simplify the implementation of AI infrastructure and help companies scale their AI activities.

Cisco has announced a series of new solutions aimed at AI implementations in large enterprises. What stands out primarily is a new AI server family. It is specifically designed for GPU-intensive AI tasks. It almost goes without saying that Cisco will work with Nvidia on the devices. The servers use Nvidia’s HGX supercomputing platform and are therefore fully optimized for AI workloads such as training and inference.

The new servers (UCS C885A M8) are equipped with Nvidia H100 and H200 GPUs. They also include BlueField 3 DPUs for fast and secure connectivity.

Cisco is also introducing the so-called AI PODs. These are pre-configured devices equipped with GPUs and tailored specifically to specific AI use cases and industries. AI PODs combine computing power, network, storage and cloud management, which would help customers deploy AI solutions efficiently.

The AI ​​PODs are based on Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) and offer customers a turnkey approach to deploying AI infrastructure. According to Cisco, the infrastructure packages remove the complexity of deploying AI applications and support various levels of AI scaling.

Accelerating AI adoption

The new products are part of Cisco’s broader strategy to help companies scale AI solutions. Managed through the Intersight platform, the solution provides centralized control and automation to simplify management and configuration of AI environments. Cisco is not alone with its ambitions. Almost everyone who sells boxes today has variants with Nvidia hardware on their shelves. Reference designs are widespread: hardware manufacturers are all trying to keep the barrier to entry for (expensive) AI servers as low as possible.