Lenovo, Cisco, and NVIDIA Collaborate for New Accelerated Computing Hybrid AI Infrastructure

The Lenovo Hybrid AI platform allows customers to leverage the unique advantages of Cisco AI Networking solutions while also taking advantage of the value add provided by NVIDIA and Lenovo's Hybrid AI platform.

Accelerate Al Workloads: Spectrum-X Ethernet drives 1.6 × faster network throughput for model training and inference

Lenovo and Cisco aim to release a jointly validated design to include the integration of the combined networking solution for AI workloads, with customers benefitting from current and future technology advancements in the NVIDIA Spectrum-X platform-- such as adaptive routing, telemetry, congestion control and low latency, as well as Cisco's broader networking portfolio. This will enable customers to optimize their AI infrastructure investments with a common architecture and using their existing management tools and processes, spanning front and back-end networks.

The design enables 1.6x faster AI network performance, 95% effective bandwidth, and industry-leading networking management, all in a single AI design (NVIDIA) performance and industry-leading networking management in a single AI design.

Reduce Congestion: Rail-optimized load-balancing boosts traffic flow by 48%, lowering latency and lifting GPU utilization

The Lenovo Hybrid AI platform with NVIDIA and Cisco is part of the Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage™ with NVIDIA joint initiative, designed to help organizations improve productivity, increase agility, and innovate with trust through standardized and accelerated development and deployment of AI use case solutions. Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage with NVIDIA brings the power of Lenovo AI library and validated, tested hybrid AI factories (hybrid AI platforms, workstations, servers, storage, network, software, models, services, partner ecosystem) to the enterprises.

The hybrid AI factory is designed to support hybrid deployments in the data centers, colos and business locations with cloud integration. It offers flexibility of model, infrastructure choice, enables a wide range of AI applications, agentic and machine learning workflows, and real-time data analysis. Lenovo's hybrid AI platforms power the hybrid AI factory, and they can scale from a single server with just four GPUs as starter environment to a rack scalable unit (SU) as a turnkey infrastructure solution with partner technology choice.

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Lenovo Hybrid Al Platform with Cisco Networking

Currently, the Lenovo Hybrid Al Platform with Cisco networking scales from 4 GPUs to 96 GPUs.

The diagram shows the Lenovo Hybrid AI Platform with Cisco Networking, including components like Al Software Components (NVIDIA AI Enterprise, NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise), Operating System (Ubuntu or Red Hat Enterprise Linux), Compute (Lenovo ThinkSystem SR635 V3, Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675 V3), Orchestration and system management (Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, XClarity, Cisco Nexus Dashboard), Networking (Cisco 9300 Series, Cisco 93108TC-FX3P DM & DG Series, Cisco 9364D-GX2A, Cisco 9364E-SG2), and Storage (Optional Storage, NVIDIA certified Storage). It highlights benefits like Faster time to value (ROI), Network Optimized GPU performance, and Co-engineered & validated solutions. It also shows Al scalable units up to 12 AI Ready servers (96 GPUs) with NVIDIA certified Storage.

Figure 1. Lenovo Hybrid Al Platform with Cisco Networking

Lenovo Hybrid Al Platform with Cisco will soon be enhanced to scale up to 160 GPUs and take advantage of NVIDIA's Spectrum-X technology with the new Cisco Silicon One based Nexus switches. NVIDIA Spectrum-X innovations result in higher Al performance through optimized network flow achieving 95% effective bandwidth.

Scale without Redesign: Grows smoothly from 4-GPU starters to 160-GPU clusters via Scalable Units

Additionally, recently announced Cisco's Al Networking capabilities with Intelligent Packet Flow and Al Job Visibility on Nexus Dashboard will provide intelligent congestion-aware traffic optimization and comprehensive Al workload monitoring to maximize infrastructure performance and reduce job completion times.

Ready to optimize your Al infrastructure performance

With the improved Hybrid Al cloud performance needed for LLMs, RAG, agentic Al, machine and deep learning, natural language processing, and diverse industry applications, deploying validated solutions with architectures designed for new and emerging Al use cases matters even more. Our partnership allows us to address customer challenges with Hybrid Al solutions that provide customers with cutting-edge flexible solutions across multiple domains, including networking, security, collaboration, and data centers.

Organizations can benefit from the NVIDIA Spectrum-X networking technology in Cisco Networking fabric, bringing the industry-leading technologies together with the most reliable servers under a single management fabric experience Nexus Dashboard.

With Cisco, Lenovo, and NVIDIA as trusted partners, committed to meeting the Hybrid Al demands of the future, we'll help your business optimize its Al infrastructure performance for better business outcomes.

Learn more about Lenovo Hybrid Al Advantage™™, Lenovo's Hybrid Al Platform and its unified networking, compute, security, and observability to power Al-ready data centers for your customers. Start your Hybrid Al journey here: Lenovo Hybrid Al Platform.

For more information

For more information, see the following resource:

• Lenovo Hybrid Al with Cisco Networking Platform Guide: https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp2236-lenovo-hybrid-ai-285-with-cisco-networking

Authors

Traci Parker is the Worldwide Solutions Marketing Manager for Enterprise IT and Al at Lenovo. She specializes in hybrid cloud, infrastructure modernization and Al solutions. She has more than 15 years of experience as a Marketing Manager and Product Marketing Manager across high-tech, fin-tech and healthcare industries.

Bret Gibbs is the Worldwide Solutions Marketing Manager for Data-Storage Solutions at Lenovo. He specializes in hybrid Al, converged infrastructure and data storage solutions. He has more than 15 years of experience as a Marketing and Product Solutions Manager in high-tech industries.

Related product families

Product families related to this document are the following:

• Artificial Intelligence

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This document, LP2238, was created or updated on June 23, 2025.

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