Cisco deepens commitment to India, cites strong growth and manufacturing push
Cisco has steadily expanded its Indian footprint through investments in innovation centres, cloud infrastructure capabilities, and workforce skilling initiatives, aligning with the government’s push for digital transformation.
Tech giant sees India as a strategically very important market and will continue to invest there, its senior executive Jeetu Patel has said. Founded in 1984, Cisco has grown into one of the leading networking and cybersecurity companies, with India emerging over the past decade as a major hub for its engineering, R&D, and global service operations. The country has also become central to Cisco’s long-term supply chain and digital infrastructure strategy.
Speaking to PTI here during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, the company's President and Chief Product Officer said India accounts for the largest concentration of its people outside the US.
"Going ahead, India is a very strategic region for us and we have experienced tremendous amounts of growth over there," he said.
Cisco has steadily expanded its Indian footprint through investments in innovation centres, cloud infrastructure capabilities, and workforce skilling initiatives, aligning with the government’s push for digital transformation. "We continue to make sure that we actually are moving our manufacturing in some cases also there," he said, while giving an example of the Chennai facility that was launched about a year ago.
"So, I think that India is a very strategic part of the world for us and we want to continue to keep investing in India," he said.
Patel said there's a very strong public private partnership culture in the country and Cisco has been very fortunate to work with the administration over there.
"Our goal is to continue to keep serving the best technologies that America produces, so that they can have the best ability for generating tokens for AI," he said.
Cisco works with a multitude of different industries in India and it wants us to continue to do that, he said. Over the years, the company has partnered with enterprises, telecom operators, and public sector agencies as India accelerates the adoption of cloud, cybersecurity, and AI-driven systems.
"It's one of our most strategic regions as we move forward," said Patel who frequently visits India.
(With inputs from PTI.)