Forget Nvidia. Cisco Could Be a Hidden Winner From the AI Boom

While NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) soaks up the AI infrastructure headlines, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) is quietly becoming one of the more compelling picks-and-shovels plays in the AI buildout.

Cisco just closed a record fiscal year, hyperscaler AI orders more than quadrupled, and management is guiding for another leg higher in fiscal 2027. Our proprietary model sees more upside from here.

Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Cisco is $131.07, implying 18.04% upside from the current $111.04 price. We rate CSCO a buy with high (90%) confidence.

24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary

A Record Year Meets a Networking Supercycle

Cisco is up 69.09% over the past year and 46.24% year to date, though shares have cooled 1.04% over the last month. The stock sits just off its 52-week high of $129.88.

Q4 FY2026 delivered revenue of $17.3 billion, up 17.58% year over year, with non-GAAP EPS of $1.22 topping consensus by 4.38%. CEO Chuck Robbins told investors the company believes “the accelerating adoption of agentic AI is fueling a networking super cycle”, and the numbers back him up: hyperscaler AI orders totaled $9.3 billion for FY2026, roughly 4.5 times the prior year.

Why Bulls See a Breakout Ahead

The bull case rests on three pillars. First, hyperscaler AI infrastructure revenue is guided to $7.5 billion in FY2027, roughly double FY2026.

Second, Q4 total product orders jumped 35%, with networking orders up 40% and hyperscaler orders growing in triple digits.

Third, Cisco has won three new hyperscaler design wins in Q4 alone and sees a “Scale Across” opportunity where AI traffic could be 14x traditional data center interconnect.

If Cisco simply hits the high end of its FY2027 EPS guide of $5.11 and re-rates to a 28x multiple, shares clear $138.78, our bull-case target.

What Could Go Wrong

Non-GAAP gross margin fell to 66.3% in Q4, down 210 basis points year over year, as AI hardware mix pressured product margins. Bulls counter that hyperscaler AI is “highly profitable” at the operating line because Cisco is not adding proportional opex.

Other risks include hyperscaler demand concentration, tariff exposure, and restructuring charges tied to the May 2026 plan. Our bear-case target sits at $109.24, essentially flat with today.

How Cisco Compares to Arista and HPE

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) is Cisco’s cleanest AI networking pure-play. It posted Q2 FY2026 revenue growth of 37.7% and trades at a trailing P/E near 68x, more than double Cisco’s 33x. Arista grows faster, but Cisco’s forward P/E of 21x looks conservative on the same AI narrative.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) is the direct competitor post-Juniper. HPE guided FY2026 non-GAAP EPS to $3.35 to $3.45 with networking revenue growth of 72% to 75%. HPE’s forward P/E near 16x is cheaper, but its GAAP profitability has been weighed down by acquisition charges. Against both peers, our 24/7 Wall St. price target looks reasonable rather than aggressive.

Bull Case Favors Buyers on This Dip

Our 24/7 Wall St. price target of $131.07 and buy rating reflect 90% confidence in Cisco’s AI networking story.

The bull thesis holds if hyperscalers keep spending and the FY2027 AI revenue guide of $7.5 billion proves conservative. The thesis weakens if gross margin compression accelerates below 65%. The setup favors the bulls.

These projections assume Cisco executes on the Silicon One roadmap and the AI supercycle broadens beyond hyperscalers. Significant upside could come from enterprise on-prem AI, while a hyperscaler capex pause is the primary downside risk.

Cisco is one of the clearer picks-and-shovels names benefiting from that capex, and we profiled seven more suppliers, from power to cooling to networking, in a free AI infrastructure report.

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