Cisco CEO: Record AI infrastructure orders highlight ‘undeniable capability and relevance’ of Cisco portfolio

“AI orders are ramping and we have a growing pipeline in the hundreds of millions as these customers look to Cisco to provide simple, scalable and secure solutions for the AI era,” said CEO Chuck Robbins

Cisco Systems saw record-breaking AI infrastructure orders placed in its fiscal 2025 year.

It’s setting the stage for the tech giant’s fiscal 2026 starting this month, which the company is promising to be its strongest fiscal year yet, CEO Chuck Robbins said during the tech giant’s Q4 and FY25 earnings call on Wednesday.

The AI infrastructure orders Cisco received from web scale customers exceeded $800m during the company’s final quarter of its fiscal year, bringing the total to over $2bn in FY25, which was more than double the company’s original $1bn target it announced in Q4 FY24.

This record ordering demonstrates “the undeniable capability and relevance of our technology for multiple back-end use cases with some of the most technologically advanced customers,” Robbins said.

At the same time, enterprise demand is steadily increasing, he added.

“While still early, AI orders are ramping and we have a growing pipeline in the hundreds of millions as these customers look to Cisco to provide simple, scalable and secure solutions for the AI era,” Robbins said.

The company’s product revenue, which is led by the core networking business, increased ten per cent and service revenue stayed flat during Q4 2025.

For the full fiscal 2025 year, product revenue increased six per cent and services climbed three per cent.

Cisco over the last year refreshed nearly its entire product portfolio across networking systems powered by SiliconOne, AI-fuelled security solutions and software operating systems.

As a result, Robbins said that the company is “well positioned to provide the critical infrastructure needed for the AI era.”

“Our FY25 performance has established a solid foundation as we turn our focus to delivering Cisco’s strongest year yet in FY26.

“As we move into the next phase of AI with agents autonomously conducting tasks alongside humans, the capacity requirements of the network will be compounded to accommodate both unprecedented levels of network traffic and an increasing threat landscape,” Robbins said.

Cisco Q4 2025 and full year financial results

Cisco’s networking segment includes the core switching and routing businesses, as well as the company’s telecommunications, cloud, and optical networking products.

The networking segment climbed 12 per cent with revenues of $7.63bn (£5.62bn) compared to Q4 2024’s result, which the company said was driven by web scale infrastructure, switching, routing, and industrial IOT.

The networking segment declined three per cent for the full 2025 fiscal year.

Cisco’s security segment sales rose nine per cent year over year with revenue of $1.95bn, which was attributed to the company’s offerings such as zero trust and extended detection and response (XDR) and secure access.

The security segment increased a whopping 59 per cent in 2025.

The observability segment posted four per cent revenue growth quarter-on-quarter of $259m, and grew 26 per cent during the full-year, led by growth in Splunk and ThousandEyes, said Cisco CFO Mark Patterson, who took on the CFO role on 27 July.

Cisco’s collaboration segment sales increased two per cent year over year to $1.04bn compared to Q4 2024, driven by strength in devices, Patterson said.

The segment increased a modest one per cent in 2025.

Subscriptions, which grew three per cent year-on-year, now make up about 54 per cent of Cisco’s total revenue, Patterson said.

For Cisco’s fiscal Q4 2025, which ended 26 July, revenue was up eight per cent to $14.63bn compared to the same period a year ago.

Cisco posted non-GAAP earnings per share of 94 cents, a 14 per cent increase compared to a year ago and non-GAAP net income of $2.8bn in the fourth fiscal quarter of the year, which was up 12 per cent year-on-year.

For the full 2025 fiscal year, revenue climbed five per cent to $56.65bn.

The company posted non-GAAP earnings per share of $3.81, a two per cent increase compared to a year ago and non-GAAP net income of $15.2bn for the full year, which was flat compared to 2024’s result.

Cisco’s stock slipped 1.56 per cent on Wednesday to $70.27 and was down slightly in after-hours trading.

This article originally appeared on CRN UK sister website CRN.