Hybrid Cloud

Cisco’s share price topped its dot‑com peak, reaching $80.25 and making it the world’s most valuable public company. After surviving the 2000 bust, Cisco broadened its offerings through acquisitions such as Scientific‑Atlanta, Webex, Duo, AppDynamics and Splunk, shifting toward software‑heavy, AI‑ready solutions. In the current AI boom, Cisco reports $1.3 billion in quarterly AI‑infrastructure orders and a 7.5% revenue rise to $15 billion, while facing competition from cloud‑native silicon and margin pressure. Yet its stock is up about 36% in 2025, outpacing the Nasdaq, as investors back its diversified, high‑margin growth strategy.

IBM announced an $11 billion all‑cash acquisition of data‑streaming platform Confluent, paying $31 per share. The deal, slated to close by mid‑2026, aims to integrate real‑time streaming into IBM’s hybrid‑cloud and AI portfolio, addressing data velocity, silos, and AI readiness for enterprise customers. Analysts view the move as a strategic boost to IBM’s “smart data” offering, complementing recent purchases of HashiCorp and Apptio. With Confluent’s 6,500+ clients and partnerships across major cloud and AI firms, IBM seeks to become a leading enabler of streaming‑driven AI solutions.

At Re:Invent 2025, AWS unveiled Trainium 3, a custom AI‑training chip delivering roughly four‑fold performance and energy gains, promising up to 50 % cost cuts. It also introduced AWS Factories, an on‑premise service that blends Trainium accelerators with Nvidia GPUs for a full‑stack AI solution. AWS added 3.8 GW of compute in the past year and targets over 12 GW by 2027, which analysts say could generate $150 billion in annual revenue. The dual hardware strategy aims to reduce GPU‑dependency, enhance supply‑chain resilience, and sharpen AWS’s competitive edge against Azure and Google Cloud.

SAP has launched EU AI Cloud, unifying its European‑focused sovereignty efforts to give organisations choice over AI and cloud deployment—via SAP‑run data centres, vetted European providers, or on‑premise installations—while keeping data within EU regulatory boundaries. Partnering with Cohere, Mistral AI, OpenAI and others, SAP embeds next‑gen models into the Business Technology Platform, offering SaaS, PaaS and IaaS options. Deployment choices span SAP Sovereign Cloud IaaS, on‑site managed infrastructure, or select hyperscalers with sovereignty extensions, targeting regulated industries and public‑sector bodies seeking a European‑centric alternative to U.S. cloud providers.