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Cisco and IBM plan to pool their R&D efforts to build a network of large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of working together to run computations up to hundreds of thousands of qubits. They aim to demonstrate the first proof-of-concept within five years, though much of this technology has not been developed yet. As part of the collaboration, the vendors will look to develop quantum…

Server memory prices could double by the end of 2026, driven by manufacturers’ pivot to AI-focused production and Nvidia’s shift to smartphone-style memory that is straining supply further. DRAM prices have already risen approximately 50% year to date and are expected to climb another 30% in Q4 2025, followed by an additional 20% in early 2026, Counterpoint Research said in its report . The firm …

Microsoft has unveiled the next generation of its Arm-based custom CPUs in the form of Cobalt 200 as part of its ongoing efforts to reduce dependency on x86-based instances and make its data centers more energy-efficient while offering better performance for cloud computing workloads. Microsoft has been using Cobalt chips to power its own services, such as Teams and Defender, and also offers them…

As more enterprise organizations adopt artificial intelligence, research reveals a growing gap between AI plans and network preparedness, according to Broadcom . While 99% of organizations have cloud strategies and are adopting AI, just 49% believe their network could support the bandwidth and low latency that AI requires, according to Broadcom’s 2026 State of Network Operations report. In additi…

SAP has cut European deals with Microsoft, Capgemini, and Orange to ostensibly deliver an emergency disaster recovery failover if Microsoft is legally blocked from delivering European services . The plan is unlikely to be needed, analysts agree, but it wouldn’t likely work for very long even if it was needed, based on the scant details the companies announced on Tuesday. SAP , through its wholly-…

The basic promise from network-as-a-service ( NaaS ) providers is to make networking easier. It’s a need that is becoming increasingly relevant as modern networks pivot to AI and network engineers are a tough job to fill . While all NaaS vendors provide a service, San Francisco-based startup Meter is looking to differentiate with purpose-built hardware, a custom operating system, and a vision for…

Amazon Web Services has developed a new Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) transponder to significantly boost its long-distance, high-capacity, data center networking capabilities. DWDM technology lets many optical channels, or wavelengths, multiplex over the same fiber backbone, increasing bandwidth immensely. AWS’ massive network infrastructure will take advantage of the increased fi…

A massive outage at content delivery network Cloudflare, which took down services including ChatGPT, Canva and parts of AWS, was traced to a routine change in database permissions linked to Cloudflare’s Bot Management system, which inadvertently knocked offline a significant portion of the web. The November 18 outage , which lasted approximately six hours, has once again highlighted how ordinary …

Recently, Cisco held the Asia-Pacific version of its Cisco Live user event. While this event is typically used to announce new Cisco products, the news payload this year included an interesting customer use case. The Singapore Sports Hub will soon get a major connectivity boost with a new high-density Wi-Fi 7 network. The complex in Kallang, which is home to some of Singapore’s biggest sporting a…

When Microsoft, Anthropic and Nvidia announced their latest partnership arrangement on Tuesday, analysts said that what appeared to give flexibility to IT buyers might instead complicate their choices. “This partnership will make [Anthropic’s] Claude the only frontier model available on all three of the world’s most prominent cloud services. Azure customers will gain expanded choice in models and…

Dell Technologies has filled out its enterprise AI infrastructure products with key upgrades to servers, storage, and software offerings. First, announced at the Supercomputing 25 conference, the company introduced two new switches , the Dell PowerSwitch Z9964F-ON and Dell PowerSwitch Z9964FL-ON. The company says that these switches deliver 102.4 Tb/s of switching capacity, which means they can m…

The realm of network observability is changing quickly in the modern generative AI era as vendors embrace and integrate increasingly sophisticated intelligence. Network observability provider Kentik, which got its start back in 2014 as CloudHelix before being rebranded in 2015, has always been focused on helping networking professionals do their jobs, which can often include lots of repetitive ta…

Many companies — including IBM itself — demonstrated uses of quantum computers that went beyond what was possible with purely classical approaches this year. But none of these were clear, undisputable demonstrations of quantum superiority, reproducible, and applicable to more than just one cherry-picked use case. “The problem is that there aren’t standardized benchmarks for quantum computing yet,…

Microsoft is betting big on agentic AI to simplify and automate cloud operations by introducing an agentic mode to Azure Copilot that could surface insights and provide recommendations, but not take any actions. While the hyperscaler is pitching the upgraded Copilot as a tool that simplifies cloud operations at scale by taking actions on its own, as opposed to traditional management tools that wo…

The reliability of services delivered by ISPs, cloud providers and conferencing services is critical for enterprise organizations. ThousandEyes, a Cisco company, monitors how providers are handling any performance challenges and provides Network World with a weekly roundup of events that impact service delivery. Read on to see the latest analysis, and stop back next week for another update on the…