Evercore ISI Maintains ‘Buy’ Rating for Cisco (CSCO), Sets $75 Target Amid AI Push

We recently compiled a list of the 10 AI Stocks You Need to Watch: News & Ratings. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) stands against the other AI stocks.

Nvidia’s annual software developer conference, GTC, is in full swing. With its latest announcements, the company is doing all it can to assure investors of its dominance in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence industry. On Tuesday, CEO Jensen Huang delivered a keynote address in front of a packed hockey stadium in San Jose, California.

He noted how he believes that humanoid robots are less than five years away from wide use in manufacturing facilities. In this regard, he unveiled software tools that would reportedly help humanoid robots navigate the world more easily. Huang talked about humanoid robots when asked what signs would show that AI had become ubiquitous.

Huang said it may be “when, literally, humanoid robots are wandering around, which is not five years away. This is not five-years-away problem, this is a few-years-away problem.”

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Huang asserted that the manufacturing industry is probably going to be the first to adopt humanoid robots. This is because it has well-defined tasks that robots can easily handle in a controlled environment.

“I think it ought to go to factories first. And the reason for that is because the domain is much more guard-railed, and the use case is much more specific. The value of it is very, very easy to determine. The going rate for renting a human robot is probably $100,000 and I think it’s pretty good economics.”

The chipmaker’s CEO reportedly has big plans for the AI data center industry too. Debuting silicon photonics networking systems, Huang noted that their Spectrum-X and Quantum-X photonics can join hundreds and even thousands of GPUs, enabling data center companies to deploy up to 1 million GPU clusters.

Huang further noted how those million cluster data centers will be connected to other million-dollar data centers nearby to form massive data center facilities.

“Over the next several years, we’re going to be building giant AI factories. Not normal AI factories … ones you see from space.”

The GTC keynote also talked about the company’s latest advancements, from Spectrum-X and Quantum-X photonics to Blackwell Ultra and Vera Rubin Superchips, which are going to help customers operate powerful AI systems to drive better revenue opportunities.

“AI factories are directly related to revenue, and if the throughput is not good, your revenue is hurt. If you don’t have enough capacity, your revenue is hurt. If you’re not producing something of great value … your revenue is hurt.”

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Cisco (CSCO) and NVIDIA Introduce Secure AI Factory Architecture

Engineers using the latest Cisco TelePresence technology to collaborate with colleagues around the world.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 84

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is an American technology company that provides information technology and networking services. On March 17, TipRanks reported that Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani maintained a “Buy” rating on the stock on March 14 and set a price target of $75.00.

The rating follows news of a partnership between Cisco and Nvidia and the unveiling of a new AI factory architecture that will empower customers to build and secure data centers to develop and run AI workloads. The Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA will use solutions like Cisco AI Defense and Hybrid Mesh Firewall to lead the way in AI infrastructure and security while streamlining enterprise AI adoption.

Overall, CSCO ranks 6th on our list of  AI Stocks you need to watch. While we acknowledge the potential of CSCO as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CSCO but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.