Cisco, fears about AI are not slowing down business: orders worth 9 billion. «It's time for the digital leap for Italian companies too»

A round of meetings between Rome and Milan. Institutions, companies, partners, employees. Today the investors in Milan, then the economics students of Luiss. Mark Patterson, Cisco's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), is in Italy as the country's "executive sponsor": the group assigns its top managers a market to follow closely. «Every part of the world is different – ​​he explains –. You can't sit still in California: you have to understand what customers really need."

Patterson has been at Cisco for 27 years, CFO since July 2025. And he arrives with growing accounts: in the last financial year revenues +12% and profits +14%, for the current one the forecast is +15% and +17%. He calls it the "supercycle" of networks: a market that has always been cyclical, linked to GDP, which with AI and security is becoming structural growth. “We still have to prove it,” he admits.

Italy, he says, is unique. Like every country, but with a difference: «In many places we have a sales office. There is a complete business here", with innovation in cybersecurity, quantum and optics. The hub is in Vimercate, in the Brianza area, born from the acquisition from Pirelli: the first optical operation in Cisco's history. Today it is one of the areas in which the group is pushing investments: in the last quarter alone it collected orders for over a billion dollars. The rest is done by people: entrepreneurial spirit, start-ups, universities.

Next to him is Agostino Santoni, at the helm of Cisco for Southern Europe, which has been among the fastest regions of the group for years. Santoni recalls the new office in Piazza Gae Aulenti, in Milan, and rejects the idea of ​​SMEs falling behind: «We are no longer behind. It's our time." He quotes the Polytechnic University of Milan: 67% of entrepreneurs say they need to look at artificial intelligence. The next phase, physical AI, benefits those who know how to make industrial products and processes. And here, for Santoni, Italy has an advantage: it knows how to connect machines to the network. Fluidmesh was born from this expertise, founded by researchers from the Polytechnic University of Milan and MIT, specializing in wireless for trains, subways and ports. She has grown to compete in the world. In 2020 Cisco bought it.

But the starting point remains training. The academy in Naples, the agreements with the Polytechnics of Milan and Turin, a rate of 76 thousand people trained per year in Italy, not just young people. Are Italian students behind? “No,” they answer bluntly. And on the flight of talents Santoni shifts the point: it is right to count who leaves, but we must also consider who arrives. «We need a plan that attracts talent from all over the world. The Italians will remain like this too."