Thursday, February 12, 2026
Cisco Systems has officially entered the intensifying AI infrastructure race with the launch of a powerful new networking chip and router engineered to accelerate data flow inside large-scale AI data centers. As global AI investments surge toward a projected $600 billion boom, Cisco is positioning itself to compete directly with industry giants Broadcom and Nvidia in the high-performance networking space.
The company introduced its Silicon One G300 switch chip, which is scheduled for release in the second half of the year. Notably, this next-generation chip is designed to enhance communication between AI training and inference systems across hundreds of thousands of interconnections. As AI models grow larger and more complex, seamless chip-to-chip communication has become mission-critical for maintaining efficiency and speed.
To strengthen performance, Cisco is manufacturing the G300 using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s advanced 3-nanometer process technology. This cutting-edge fabrication method allows the chip to deliver improved performance while optimizing power efficiency. More importantly, Cisco has built several innovative “shock absorber” capabilities into the chip. These features are specifically designed to prevent network slowdowns during sudden spikes in data traffic, a common challenge in AI-heavy environments.
According to Martin Lund, executive vice president of Cisco's common hardware group, the chip enhances overall network responsiveness by intelligently rerouting data within microseconds whenever congestion or disruptions occur. Cisco estimates that these improvements could accelerate certain AI computing workloads by as much as 28 percent.
"This happens when you have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of connections - it happens quite regularly," Lund said. "We focus on the total end-to-end efficiency of the network."
Meanwhile, networking has rapidly evolved into one of the most competitive segments within the AI ecosystem. Nvidia recently introduced new AI systems that include a networking chip among their six core components, directly challenging Cisco’s technology. At the same time, Broadcom continues expanding its presence in AI networking with its Tomahawk chip series.
As AI infrastructure spending accelerates globally, Cisco’s latest innovation signals its determination to capture a meaningful share of the rapidly expanding data center networking market.
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