Over the past several months, the Cisco team has been engaged in strategic planning for an important initiative in the media and broadcast space, NAB Show 2026. We are excited to be on site next month in Las Vegas to showcase how Cisco integrates our extensive portfolio of products to work together as a system — helping our media and broadcast customers drive the efficiency and agility needed to deliver world-class content experiences for their viewers.

When you watch a championship game or a blockbuster movie, you probably are not thinking about the technology running in the background. Our team is. We spend our time obsessing over the “how.” We focus on how to move media without a single dropped frame and how to keep production moving when the team is spread across continents. One thing is evident as we head into NAB at the West Hall (Booth #W2633), that “how” is getting more complex as we move further into the AI-era. At Cisco, we are helping media and entertainment organizations build AI-ready infrastructure, future-proofed workplaces, and digital resilience — to ensure they are equipped to thrive in an AI-driven world.

Here is what to expect from Cisco at NAB Show 2026 and how we provide the AI-ready infrastructure powering the future of media and entertainment.

AI-ready infrastructure: Solving the throughput bottleneck

The architectural challenge today is simple: AI workloads and uncompressed data require massive bandwidth that traditional networks cannot handle without jitters. We are transforming the data center to ensure the network is never the bottleneck.

• Eliminating Transport Lag: Moving high-bandwidth, uncompressed media requires a rock-solid foundation. We use IP Fabric for Media (IPFM) on Nexus 9000 switches to provide the low-latency, ST 2110-compliant transport that live production demands.
• Intelligent Content Steering (Agile Services Networking): This is our answer to the complexity of global production. Using SRv6, we can “program” a live feed with instructions that tell the network exactly which path to take across the globe. By steering traffic with surgical precision, we eliminate the need for complex gateways and tunnels, ensuring your production feeds get the predictable, low-latency performance they required no matter the distance.
• Maximizing GPU Efficiency and Power Savings: When your network is slow, your expensive GPUs sit idle. By using Silicon One (P200 and G300) ASICs, we improve GPU utilization up to 28%. But performance is only half the story. Power is increasingly hard to find; our latest silicon reduces power consumption by up to 65–70% compared to previous generations. This efficiency, combined with new liquid-cooled designs, allows you to scale your AI clusters even when your facility’s power budget is at its limit.
• Scaling AI Workflows: To help you deploy AI without the complexity, our Secure AI Factory (built with NVIDIA) provides a pre-validated environment. Using Cisco AI Pods, you can scale rendering and metadata workloads while keeping your high-value content private and secure.

Future-proofed workplaces: Solving the latency of distance

The challenge at the edge is the “round-trip” delay. Sending data from a stadium back to a central data center for processing takes too long for real-time fan engagement.

• Processing at the Source:  We recently launched our newest edge computing solution, Cisco Unified Edge.  This solution is a modular chassis that puts network, security and compute (with GPUs) exactly where the action happens, in the stadium, studio, or remote production truck. It allows for instant decisions and real-time AR/VR experiences by eliminating the trip to the data center.
• Frictionless Venues: To support thousands of fans and devices simultaneously, we are showcasing connectivity solutions that deliver outstanding immersive stadium experience.
• Driving more revenue: Wipro VisionEDGE leverages Cisco’s secure, intelligent infrastructure to transform physical venues into high-revenue digital ecosystems through immersive, personalized experiences. By integrating Cisco Catalyst networking and Cisco Spaces analytics, venues achieve measurable outcomes like increased fan spending, higher retail conversion rates, and optimized traveler flow. This robust partnership ensures that businesses can deliver seamless, data-driven interactions while maintaining enterprise-grade security across their entire digital footprint.

Digital resilience: Solving the “blind spot” problem

The biggest nightmare for any broadcast engineer is video delays or signal drops with no clear cause. Is it the camera, something in the studio, the ISP, connectivity, or something else? We are solving this by providing a unified view of the entire content path.

• Reducing Mean Time to Repair: We’re bringing together Splunk and ThousandEyes together into the unified Cisco Data Fabric. This allows you to correlate network health with actual broadcast telemetry. If a frame drops, you will know instantly if the issue is in your facility or a bottleneck in the ISP path.
• Ensuring External Reliability: With Provider Assurance, we give you deep visibility into the external ISP and cloud paths that your content relies on. You can finally see exactly how the “last mile” is performing, ensuring your delivery is as rock-solid as your internal fiber.
• Security Without Jitter: Traditionally, security inspection adds latency that kills live video. We solve this with smart DPU integrated switches. By offloading security processing to the hardware, you can protect high bandwidth flows without adding the delays that ruin the live experience.
• Securing the Remote Set: We use zero trust and Cisco Secure Access (SASE) to verify every device, from a sideline camera to a remote editor. This ensures your pre-release IP is protected, even when your team is distributed globally.

Join us at NAB 2026

Stop by our booth in the West Hall #W2633 to engage with our demos led by our subject matter expects across numerous technology areas. In addition,  we are hosting the below sessions specifically curated to address the challenges and opportunities in the industry.

1. Inside Modern Live Sports Production (Monday, April 20, at 2:00 PM): A look at how engineering teams support high-stakes streaming.
2. The Conundrum of the Edge (Monday, April 20, at 11:30 AM): A look into the use cases Cisco Unified Edge can unlock.
3. Cisco In-booth theater talks: Stop by the booth for 15-minute lightning talks from Cisco experts, customers and partners taking place all week.

I would love to discuss challenges you are facing or strategic roadmap in person. I invite you to schedule a 1:1 meeting with me or one of our Cisco experts at the show. Please click here to find a time that works for you and schedule a meeting with a Cisco team member.

The Cisco advantage is simple: our networks provide the foundation, our security protects every layer, and our visibility tools ensure the show goes on. See you at NAB Show 2026!