Cisco AI Orders Exceed $2 Billion

Cisco is fully investing in the AI infrastructure field, having received over $2 billion in orders so far this fiscal year, with $800 million in the fourth quarter alone (as of July 26, 2025) (two-thirds from system equipment, the rest from optical communication products). Despite the considerable order volume, the company’s management remains cautious about when AI business will be converted into actual revenue.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins emphasized during the earnings conference call that “AI is not a short-term trend. He revealed that the enterprise level AI demand pipeline has reached a scale of ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’, but did not make a prediction on the specific revenue conversion of the $2 billion order. The company expects total revenue to reach $59-60 billion in the 2026 fiscal year.

Patrick Moorhead, Chief Analyst at Moor Insights&Strategy, believes that Cisco’s “extreme conservatism” towards AI data is a wise move: “The volatility of orders from very large scale customers is extremely high, and it is difficult to determine the winner until the end.” In addition to the European and American markets, Cisco is accelerating its layout in the Middle East – joining the UAE’s “Stargate” alliance in May (including OpenAI, Nvidia, etc.), and recently assisting Saudi Arabia’s Zain KSA in launching GPU as a service.

J. Jack Gold, Chief Analyst at Gold Associates, stated that Cisco’s multi line AI strategy deserves recognition. Although the AI construction boom will eventually cool down, it is crucial for its future revenue at this stage. In the field of optical communication, Cisco faces strong competitors such as Huawei, Ciena, and Nokia, which acquired Infinera.

Security business may become Cisco’s new growth engine. In the fourth quarter, network security revenue increased by 9% year-on-year to $1.9 billion (second only to the networking business that grew by 12% to $7.6 billion), with Splunk (acquired by Cisco for $28 billion in 2023) contributing significantly. In the fourth quarter, AI security products such as Secure Access and XDR added 750 new customers. Gold emphasized that the expansion of network and AI computing power will drive up security demands, and Cisco is gradually achieving its goal of becoming a ‘core security service provider’. “

Analysts believe that as the global AI infrastructure competition continues, Cisco needs to maintain a balance between order conversion and exploring emerging markets. Whether its diversified layout can be realized into substantial profits will become the focus of attention in the next stage.