Cisco cuts thousands of jobs as it shifts focus to AI and cybersecurity

Wed, 14 Aug, 2024 - 22:05

By Associated Press Reporter

Cisco Systems is planning to lay off 7% of its employees, its second round of job cuts this year as the company shifts its focus to more rapidly growing areas in technology such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

The US company did not specify the number of jobs it is cutting.

It had 84,900 employees as of July 2023. Based on that figure, the number of jobs cut would be about 5,900. In February, Cisco announced it would cut about 4,000 jobs.

Cisco's layoff could impact Irish jobs, as the company has operations in Galway and Dublin.

The networking equipment maker said in June that it would invest $1 billion (€900 million) in tech start-ups like Cohere, Mistral and Scale to develop reliable AI products.

It recently also announced a partnership with Nvidia to develop infrastructure for AI systems.

In a foray into cybersecurity, Cisco launched a cybersecurity readiness index back in March to help businesses measure their resiliency against attacks.