Cisco expands Secure AI Factory
Cisco and Nvidia announced a major expansion of the Secure AI Factory to push AI deployments beyond data centers and toward the network edge — integrating networking, security, and real‑time compute. The move emphasizes hybrid/edge architecture skills for network and cloud engineers. (htxt.co.za)
March 16, 2026 — Cisco rolled the update out at NVIDIA GTC 2026 and confirmed Cisco AI Defense will natively support NVIDIA’s new OpenShell open-agent runtime to add runtime guardrails and audit trails for agent actions. (newsroom.cisco.com) Cisco extended enforcement for its Hybrid Mesh Firewall to run on NVIDIA BlueField DPUs, enabling in-server, line-rate stateful inspection and flow-level observability without consuming host CPU/GPU cycles. (blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/cisco-secures-ai-infrastructure-with-nvidia-bluefield-dpus) The expansion adds orderable support for NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs across Cisco UCS and Unified Edge platforms and pairs those GPUs with new Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) and Intersight lifecycle management for repeatable deployments. (blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/nvidia-rtx-pro-4500-blackwell-launches-on-cisco-secure-ai-factory-with-nvidia)(cisco.com) Networking updates include the Cisco N9100 series as a Spectrum‑X partner switch option and continued support for Cisco Silicon One Nexus switching in Cisco Cloud Reference Architectures, with deployment choices of NX‑OS or SONiC for AI fabrics. (newsroom.cisco.com)(datacentremagazine.com) Cisco and NVIDIA said the expanded reference designs and integrations compress pilot‑to‑production timelines from months to weeks and target verticals that require local, low‑latency inference such as warehouses, hospitals and automotive/transportation systems. (prnewswire.com)(storagenewsletter.com) Cisco highlighted ecosystem and observability tie‑ins — citing integrations with Run:ai, Splunk and partner‑developed AI POD reference designs — while positioning Nexus Hyperfabric AI and Hybrid Mesh Firewall as orchestration and security pillars for multi‑site AI operations. (investor.cisco.com)(thefastmode.com)
