Over the past year, I’ve spent countless hours with customers rethinking how AI moves through their business. Not just in the cloud or the data center, but everywhere data is created.
What’s clear is this: AI isn’t waiting for the data center anymore. It’s happening right now, in factories, at ports, in hospitals, and in stores – where milliseconds matter, and where decisions shape outcomes.
That’s the edge. The new center of gravity for AI.
And today, I’m proud to introduce Cisco Unified Edge, the industry’s first edge computing platform that unifies compute, networking, storage, and security in one modular system. It’s where AI meets the front lines of the enterprise, making it simple, scalable, and secure to run intelligence anywhere business happens.
Why it Matters
By 2027, 75% of enterprise data will be created and processed at the edge, as AI workloads shift from centralized model training to real-time inference. In retail, drive-through operations rely on inferencing to optimize order throughput and customer experience. In manufacturing, machine vision systems depend on low-latency analytics to monitor assets and prevent downtime.
Across industries, AI is moving closer to where data is born. Our customers saw it coming. AI was outgrowing the data center, and they needed the power of the data center closer to where business actually happens.
So we built it.
Introducing Cisco Unified Edge
Cisco Unified Edge wasn’t designed in isolation. It was shaped through real conversations with customers who came to us with their challenges. They didn’t ask for a product. They asked for a breakthrough – a way to run AI securely and efficiently across thousands of sites without armies of specialists or disconnected systems.
We listened, and we built an architecture that delivers performance, simplicity, and trust — the three pillars that define this platform.
Performance: AI Ready at the Edge
Let’s start with performance. Today, more than 50% of enterprise AI pilots never make it to production — most because infrastructure can’t scale or data can’t move fast enough. Cisco Unified Edge was built to change that.
Every component of Cisco Unified Edge is designed for real-world demands. A modular, serviceable chassis supports both CPUs and GPUs side by side, so customers can start small and scale as their AI workloads grow.
No extra boxes. No added complexity. Just secure, real-time AI ready to deploy anywhere. And because of its flexible architecture, Cisco Unified Edge is future-proof, ready to support not just today’s AI applications, but the ones that haven’t even been conceived yet.
That’s the power of modular design.
Simplicity at Scale: Unified Operations
With Cisco Intersight, we extend the same operational model used in the data center all the way to the edge. Systems ship ready to deploy. Just tap, claim, and they’re online.
From one site to thousands, every deployment stays consistent, secure, and automatically updated through the cloud. Policies are enforced. Compliance stays intact. Configuration drift becomes a thing of the past.
And because everything is managed remotely, IT teams don’t have to travel for setup or maintenance, saving time, reducing costs, and accelerating rollout at scale.
This is AI at the edge without the operational friction.
Security: Fused into the network
At Cisco, security is intrinsic, built right into the network. The networking nodes integrate the same Cisco SASE and firewall technologies trusted across millions of enterprise sites – now brought to the edge.
Cisco Unified Edge starts from a zero-trust foundation, with verified boot, encrypted telemetry, and continuous monitoring through Cisco Intersight.
When a new vulnerability emerges, the platform detects it, remediates it, and confirms protection across every system. Patch once. Protect everywhere. That’s resilience built for the real world.
An Ecosystem That Extends the Edge
Innovation at this scale doesn’t happen alone. Foundational partners like NVIDIA and Intel have been with us every step of the way, from silicon to software, ensuring Cisco Unified Edge delivers the performance and flexibility AI demands.
But what makes Unified Edge truly powerful is the ecosystem that surrounds it.
We’re working with an expanding network of independent software vendors (ISVs) to enable industry-specific use cases — from predictive quality and robotics control in manufacturing, to AI-driven video analytics in retail, to smart grid and energy optimization in utilities.
Our cutting-edge AI ecosystem is helping bring these capabilities to life, combining their software innovation with Cisco’s secure infrastructure and operational consistency.
Together, we’re delivering a platform that doesn’t just run AI. This is AI made practical, scalable, and secure. It’s the system that brings the power of the data center to the edge, and the edge to AI.
The Next Frontier
Cisco Unified Edge is already coming to life. From predictive maintenance on the factory floor, to real-time logistics in global ports, to AI-assisted patient care in remote clinics, customers are transforming their operations right where data is born.
But we’re not just building for today. We’re building for what’s next. Because AI isn’t something that happens somewhere else. It happens everywhere. Analysts project that edge locations will outnumber traditional data centers 10 to 1 within the next three years.
Cisco Unified Edge makes that possible. We’ve only begun to explore what AI at the edge can do. Together with our customers and partners, we’re not just powering AI – we’re redefining where it lives.
This is Cisco Unified Edge: an AI-ready edge platform that others would build — if they could.
Watch the full launch: Cisco Virtual Launch: AI Infrastructure from Core to Edge
Learn more: Cisco Unified Edge Overview | Press Release
An amazing launch and a huge milestone for Cisco Compute !!