Cisco Builds the Critical Infrastructure for the AI Era
At Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Cisco highlights how we’re helping our partners build secure, smart networks to enable the next generation of AI-powered use cases.
Mobile World Congress 2026
Barcelona | March 2, 2026
For more than 40 years, Cisco has been a trusted partner for global service providers. Now, as they navigate one of the most significant technological shifts in a generation, Cisco is empowering operators to transform their infrastructure into the intelligent, automated and secure foundations necessary for the AI era.
Service providers must scale their networks to meet the unprecedented demands of distributed AI workloads. But they must do so while also securing their networks against the next generation of threats, and enabling for the delivery of new, assured services they can offer as they grow their businesses. Cisco is working alongside the world’s leading operators to bridge the gap between traditional connectivity and the high-performance requirements of agentic and physical AI workloads.
AI represents a massive opportunity for service providers as they look to monetize their infrastructure in new ways—from edge computing for AI inferencing to providing the backbone for giga-scale secure AI factories. Cisco is demonstrating how we're not only driving operational efficiency for our partners, but also unlocking new revenue streams that will define the future of the entire networking ecosystem.
Delivering the next age of Mobility
Cisco is helping service providers around the world transform their mobility infrastructure into a business platform, empowering customers to build differentiated services quickly and scale them intelligently. With the Mobility Services Platform that offers IoT-as-a-service and programmable core offerings, to the Mobility Services Gateway that provide simplified upgrade paths to 5G, 5G Advanced and prepare for AI-native 6G architectures, Cisco is ensuring service providers and enterprises can carve out new revenue opportunities driven by AI use cases.
Protecting against a new era of attacks
Global service providers face increasingly sophisticated AI-driven cyberattacks that can challenge traditional security methods and compromise critical infrastructure at scale. Compounding this challenge, many organizations may not even realize they are using insecure capabilities or network assets that haven’t been updated. Also, though years away, quantum computing poses a “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” threat today, where adversaries steal encrypted data today with the intent of cracking it once quantum computing becomes available. To combat these threats, Cisco is helping its partners move toward AI-enhanced defense and quantum-resistant encryption, laying the foundations for a security operations center for the future.
Rearchitecting the Network for AI
Cisco Agile Services Networking is a purpose-built architecture for AI connectivity. This architecture featuring advanced silicon, systems, optics, automation, and assurance empowers service providers to build the foundational networks optimized for AI workloads. With AgenticOps capabilities, organizations can pave the way to self-healing, self-optimizing infrastructure that doesn’t just report issues, but understands and adapts to prevent or fix issues before it impacts performance. Through multi-agentic AI frameworks, teams can manage complex, multi-vendor networks with greater speed, accuracy and confidence. Cisco is ensuring its partners have an intelligent, simplified and resilient network that is ready for the AI era.
