Cisco Updates Networking Products in Bid To Tap AI-Fueled Demand (bloomberg.com) 8
Cisco is updating its networking and security products to make AI networks speedier and more secure, part of a broader push to capitalize on the AI spending boom. From a report: A new generation of switches -- networking equipment that links computer systems -- will offer a 10-fold improvement in performance, the company said on Tuesday. That will help prevent AI applications from suffering bottlenecks when transferring data, Cisco said. Networking speed has become a bigger issue as data center operators try to manage a flood of AI information -- both in the cloud and within the companies' own facilities. Slowdowns can hinder AI models, Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel said in an interview. That applies to the development phase -- known as training -- and the operation of the models, a stage called inference. A massive build-out of data centers has made Cisco more relevant, he said. "AI is going to be network-bound, both on training and inference," Patel said. Having computer processors sit idle during training because of slow networks is "just throwing away money."
So 10Gig switches or what? (Score:3, Insightful)
10 fold means what? like 10G switches? or 100G? or 400G? This isn't AI or anything, this is just trying to cash in on buzzwords
Re: (Score:2)
NVIDIA is making a big song and dance about AI integrated networking, so now everyone has to pretend their network switches are AI ready.
Re: So 10Gig switches or what? (Score:2)
Sounds like infiniband all over again
Buy my perfume (Score:3)
Also try my peanuts, to avoid going hungry while AI AI AI
And these rocks, because AI AI AI.
A packet is a packet... (Score:3)
A packet is a packet, regardless if it goes to Slashdot, SkyNet, MCP, or Marvin. I'm not sure how AI added to network fabric is going to improve things unless it is about dynamic QoS where if someone is typing requests to ChatGPT, those get priority over other traffic, or AI is added to the IDS/IPS and the MDR (Cisco Secure/AMP) for added security (which most companies do already.)
Maybe this means means moving past 800gigE to 1600gigE or 2000gigE? This is just progression of network speeds.
If this is just making stuff faster and less latency, this is a boon for everyone, as it means faster speeds across the board. If this means more secret sauce dumped on somethng... meh. I'm just hoping that an "AI router" is not the same thing as a "MP3 headphone set", or a "Blockchain Rubik's Cube" where someone tosses the title in on a product that has little relevance to the item mentioned.
Re: (Score:2)
QoS is a logical place to start. I could definitely also see AI being useful in IDS, as you say, as long as it isn't allowed to take action without human approval.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe this means means moving past 800gigE to 1600gigE or 2000gigE? This is just progression of network speeds.
If this is just making stuff faster and less latency, this is a boon for everyone, as it means faster speeds across the board.
Reread the summary, that's all it is. "AI" is the cause of the data center spending, Cisco updates products because of increased data center spend.
It sounds pretty boring but companies don't develop new products just for the fun of it. It's still Cisco.. but if they're looking at new products, maybe their competitors will too, and maybe there will be room for new startups to enter the market. It's interesting from that point of view.
After the corporate bullshit vaporware dissipates (Score:3)
We get it. Instead of helping us to get rid of the scourge of AI bots coming from brazil, china, ukraine and likes clogging up the Internet and wastes everyone's time and money, they actually want to make a bigger pipe for them. The bigger the vaporware, more money from fools, larger pipe to clog the Internet. Hope cisco burns down in flames!