Cisco

(NASDAQ: CSCO · $115.34 ▼ 2.6%) Cisco is a networking and security technology company that provides infrastructure to help organizations connect and protect their operations in what it calls the AI era. The company's legal name is Cisco Systems, Inc., and it is headquartered in San Jose, California. Its history goes back more than 40 years, a span that covers the shift from computers that barely communicated with one another to networks that now link satellites, power grids and phones. Cisco's stated aim is to help customers, partners and communities improve productivity and strengthen digital resilience, meaning the ability to keep operating through cyberattacks, outages and other failures.

Cisco's portfolio of products, solutions and services centers on networking, security, observability and collaboration, alongside cloud management. Products include Silicon One programmable networking silicon, Smart Switches with embedded security, Hybrid Mesh Firewall for zero-trust segmentation, the Cisco Cloud Control platform for a shared view across IT domains, and Cisco IQ for AI-assisted support and professional services. The company follows a platform approach that unifies its products into systems, a strategy common among large infrastructure vendors seeking to reduce integration work for corporate IT teams.

Cisco reports more than 1 million customers worldwide, among them the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team, Tripadvisor and Nestlé, which uses Cisco networking across 1700 sites. The company's networking technology is aimed at hyperscalers, service providers and enterprises, and its products span data center, cloud, campus, edge and IoT environments. Hyperscalers are operators of very large cloud data centers, where AI workloads rely on fast, high-capacity links between many servers. Beyond products, the company offers IT certifications and training, conducts academic research with universities, and states a commitment to a more connected and inclusive future.