Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) launched the Cisco 8223 on Wednesday, calling it the industry’s most powerful fixed Ethernet router, built to meet soaring demand from artificial intelligence workloads.
The move marks Cisco’s direct challenge to Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) in the high-performance networking space.
While Broadcom’s Jericho chip, announced in August, also targets AI workloads across multiple sites, Cisco aims to deliver its solution to customers faster, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
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Designed to securely and efficiently connect data centers, the 8223 delivers 51.2 Tbps of switching capacity, doubling bandwidth over existing solutions.
Powered by Cisco’s latest Silicon One P200 chip, the 8223 enhances performance, energy efficiency, and link stability, enabling enterprises to overcome bandwidth bottlenecks caused by massive AI data transfers.
Cisco built the system to support “scale-across” networking as hyperscale data centers run out of room to scale up or out, requiring fast, secure links across long distances.
The new system supports 800G coherent optics, deep buffering, and programmability, future-proofing networks.
Cisco also highlighted the power savings of over 70% compared to traditional optical solutions. The P200 chip will be visible not only in the 8223 but also in modular platforms and other Cisco hardware, providing architectural flexibility across various deployments.
Industry leaders such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Cloud, and Lumen (NYSE:LUMN) have praised the new system, with Microsoft citing its buffering capacity for AI and Alibaba planning to utilize the chip to expand its eCore infrastructure.
Price Action: CSCO stock was trading higher by 1.52% to $70.04 at last check Wednesday.
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