Why Cisco Stock Inched Higher on Wednesday

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is gearing up to be part of an international consortium building out artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, and investors cheered the news. The veteran networking equipment company's shares rose by over 1% that day, a rate that was sufficient to outperform the S&P 500 index's 0.4% improvement.

New AI partnership in the works

Cisco is to be part of a joint venture with chip company AMD and Saudi Arabia-based AI developer Humain that will deploy AI infrastructure in the Middle Eastern country. The operations of this business should begin in 2026, Cisco wrote in a press release.

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This as-yet-unnamed enterprise will see the company's hardware, as well as that of AMD, deployed in Human's data centers in an effort to further the growth of AI. The goal is to develop 1 gigawatt of AI infrastructure by 2030.

In the press release, Cisco quoted its CEO Chuck Robbins as saying that by participating in the initiative, the company "will help the Kingdom turn its vision for a digitally advanced, AI-powered economy into a reality."

The U.S.-Saudi connection

The three-way collaboration was initially announced in May, during President Trump's official visit to Saudi Arabia. The latest news came a day after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's reciprocal trip to the U.S., during which he met with the American leader.

While Cisco sounded an unabashedly positive note in its press release, it didn't provide any financial particulars.

Without them, we can't effectively gauge how the project might affect the tech hardware company's fundamentals. What we can say is that this is a potentially quite large and long-term project that is sure to boost revenue to some degree. It'll also enhance the buy case for Cisco, which remains a top name in its field of networking.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices and Cisco Systems. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.