Cisco debuts new AI-focused security system after $28 billion deal to buy Splunk
The Cisco logo is on display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on February 26, 2024.
Charlie Perez | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Enterprise technology titan Cisco Systems on Thursday unveiled a new security architecture product aimed at securing data centers, clouds, and other IT environments with the help of AI.
Called HyperShield, the product uses AI to protect applications, devices, and data across public and private data centers, clouds, and physical locations, according to a company press release.
HyperShield follows the company’s $28 billion acquisition of Splunk last year, a cybersecurity company competing with the likes of DataDog, Elastic, SolarWinds, and Dynatrace. Its launch also builds on Cisco’s partnership with Nvidia on managing and securing AI infrastructure.
This is Cisco’s big chance to prove itself as a serious AI player at a time when technology giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are spending billions to become leaders in artificial intelligence.
“This is not a product, but a new architecture – the first version of something new,” Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration, told CNBC in an interview this week.
Other brands are also moving in a similar direction. Hewlett Packard Enterprise recently announced new large AI model integrations for its Aruba networking division, while Broadcom’s VMWare launched a tool to allow companies to use generative AI products in a privacy-secure way.
How it works
HyperShield serves as a “shield for security,” Patel said, explaining that it takes security directly to the things that need to be secured.
The technology acts like a “fabric,” rather than a “fence,” giving cyber workers better visibility of software vulnerabilities across applications, according to Patel.
The product has an autonomous segmentation feature aimed at helping businesses avoid vulnerabilities and breaches. It allows Cisco’s AI to divide a computer network into smaller parts to improve performance and security.
Another feature, called self-qualifying upgrades, lets organizations automate the process of testing and deploying upgrades.
Patel said organizations dealing with critical infrastructure — such as oil rigs, internet of things (IoT) devices, and MRI machines in hospitals — need to take particular care when upgrading their systems.
Designed with AI in mind
Patel said Cisco’s HyperShield technology was designed with a new world of digital AI assistants – like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and other advanced tools – in mind.
“We’re moving from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance, with digital AI assistants for everything,” Patel told CNBC. “Those assistants live in data centres.”
“So when you consider the increase in requirements that this places on the data centre, and how we build for that, there is a need to rearchitect, not build more of the same,” said Patel.
He noted that a security architecture like HyperShield hadn’t been built previously because much of the architectures across the industry were created in a time when modern-day applications and technologies like generative AI didn’t exist.
It currently takes roughly four days for a network vulnerability to be discovered before it’s exploited, and the time taken to patch it is even longer at an average 45 days, according to Patel.
He said that new technologies like AI and machine learning are needed to identify and patch vulnerabilities to be compressed from days to minutes.
“Previously you had to work on the assumption that a breach had happened, [and that] once someone was in, there was lateral movement that you had to identify before you could respond,” Patel told CNBC.
“We need to move to a position where we can predict and respond.”
Why it matters for investors
Cisco shares have underperformed the Nasdaq in the last 12 months, falling nearly 5% year-over-year while the tech-heavy index has jumped over 30%.
Over the past five years, it’s been an even worse investment relative to the broader sector. The stock is down 14% over that stretch, trailing the Nasdaq’s 95% gain.
Cisco share price performance year-over-year, compared with the performance of the Nasdaq Composite over the same period.
Cisco has long been the world’s largest maker of computer networking equipment, like switches, modems, and routers. It’s been boosting its cybersecurity business to meet customer demands and fuel growth.
That’s where the company’s blockbuster acquisition of Splunk comes in: Splunk’s technology helps businesses monitor and analyze their data to minimize the risk of hacks and resolve technical issues faster.
As the public cloud has gobbled up more of Cisco’s traditional back-end business, the company has needed to find new and bigger revenue streams — with cybersecurity emerging as a key bet.
– CNBC’s Rohan Goswami and Jordan Novet contributed to this report
Technology
Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in $2.4 billion licensing deal
In this photo illustration, a man seen holding a smartphone with the logo of US artificial intelligence company Cognition AI Inc. in front of website.
Timon Schneider | SOPA Images | Sipa USA | AP
Artificial intelligence startup Cognition announced it’s acquiring Windsurf, the AI coding company that lost its CEO and several other senior employees to Google just days earlier.
Cognition said on Monday that it will purchase Windsurf’s intellectual property, product, trademark, brand and talent, but didn’t disclose terms of the deal. It’s the latest development in an AI talent war, as companies like Meta, Google and OpenAI fiercely compete for top engineers and researchers.
OpenAI had been in talks to acquire Windsurf for about $3 billion in April, but the deal fell apart, and Google said on Friday that it hired Windsurf’s co-founder and CEO Varun Mohan. Google is paying $2.4 billion in licensing fees and for compensation, as CNBC previously reported.
“Every new employee of Cognition will be treated the same way as existing employees: with transparency, fairness, and deep respect for their abilities and value,” Cognition CEO Scott Wu wrote in a memo to employees on Monday. “After today, our efforts will be as a united and aligned team. There’s only one boat and we’re all in it together.”
Cognition didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. Windsurf directed CNBC to Cognition.
Cognition is best known for its AI coding agent named Devin, which is designed to help engineers build software faster. As of March, the startup had raised hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation of close to $4 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Both companies are backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Other investors in Windsurf include Greenoaks, Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst.
“I’m overwhelmed with excitement and optimism, but most of all, gratitude,” Jeff Wang, the interim CEO of Windsurf, wrote in a post on X on Monday. “Trying times reveal character, and I couldn’t be prouder of how every single person at Windsurf showed up these last three days for each other and for our users.”
Wu said that the acquisition ensures all Windsurf employees are “treated with respect and well taken care of in this transaction.” All employees will participate financially in the deal, have vesting cliffs waived for their work to date and receive fully accelerated vesting for their, according to the memo.
“There’s never been a more exciting time to build,” Wu wrote.
WATCH: Google snatches Windsurf CEO after OpenAI deal dissolves
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg looks on before the luncheon on the inauguration day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second presidential term in Washington on Jan. 20, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Meta on Monday said it has removed about 10 million profiles for impersonating large content producers through the first half of 2025 as part of an effort by the company to combat “spammy content.”
The crackdown is part of Meta’s broader effort to make the Facebook feed more relevant and authentic by taking action against and removing accounts that engage in “spammy” behavior, such as content created using artificial intelligence tools.
As part of that initiative, Meta is also rolling out stricter measures to promote original posts from creators, the company said in a blog post.
Facebook also took action against approximately 500,000 accounts that it identified to be engaged in inauthentic behavior and spam. These actions included demoting comments and reducing distribution of content, which are intended to make it harder for these accounts to monetize their posts.
Meta said unoriginal content is when images or videos are reused without crediting the original creator. Meta said it now has technology that will detect duplicate videos and reduce the distribution of that content.
The action against spam and inauthentic content comes as Meta increases its investment in AI, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday announcing plans to spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” on AI compute infrastructure to bring the company’s first supercluster online next year.
This mandate comes at a time when AI is making it easier to mass-produce content across social media platforms. Other platforms are also taking action to combat the increase of spammy, low-quality content on social media, also known as “AI slop.”
Google’s YouTube announced a change in policy this month that prevents content that is mass-produced or repetitive from being eligible for being awarded revenue.
This announcement sparked confusion on social media, with many users believing this was a reversal on YouTube’s stance on AI content. However, YouTube clarified that the policy change is aimed at curbing unoriginal, spammy and repetitive videos.
“We welcome creators using AI tools to enhance their storytelling, and channels that use AI in their content remain eligible to monetize,” said a spokesperson for YouTube in a blog post to clarify the new policy.
YouTube’s new policy change will take effect on Tuesday.
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