
Cisco Systems CSCO.O raised its annual revenue forecast on Wednesday, betting on higher demand for its cloud networking gear amid an artificial intelligence boom
Shares of CSCO up 6.21% at $66.4 in premarket trading
AI-POWERED DATA CENTER HUB
J.P. Morgan ("overweight," PT: $73) expects that the increasing use of AI by enterprises and the growth of large cloud service providers (hyperscalers) will significantly boost demand for Cisco's portfolio
Piper Sandler ("neutral," PT: $72) says CSCO is in a good position due to data center upgrades and growth in AI with big cloud providers
Morningstar (fair value: $54) expects integrating Splunk will improve CSCO's security growth over the next five years, making it more comparable to its competitors like Fortinet Inc FTNT.O and Palo Alto Networks Inc PANW.O
Morgan Stanley ("overweight," PT: $68) sees CSCO's growth in orders related to large-scale web infrastructure (webscale) and improvements in networking capabilities within campus networks, not just in data centers