Cisco stock pops 15% on 4,000 layoffs and an AI order surge

Cisco announced its largest restructuring in years on Wednesday. The company will cut close to four thousand jobs this quarter. That is just under five percent of its global workforce. The layoffs are part of a deeper pivot into A.I. infrastructure. Per CNBC, Cisco's stock rose roughly fifteen percent on the news of the cuts. The company also reported record quarterly revenue of fifteen point eight billion dollars. Cisco said it has booked five point three billion dollars in A.I. infrastructure orders this fiscal year. It raised its annual A.I. order guidance from five billion to nine billion dollars. Chief Executive Chuck Robbins said in a blog post that becoming a winner in A.I. meant making hard decisions. The blog post went up the same day the cuts were announced. Per the company, the order surge is driven by its hyperscaler customers — the firms running the largest A.I. data centers. The workers being let go are largely the ones who built the networks those data centers run on.