The old new thing: Cisco and retro tech are back and forming the AI buildout’s backbone

The old new thing: Cisco and retro tech are back and forming the AI buildout’s backbone The old new thing: Cisco and retro tech are back and forming the AI buildout’s backbone ‘Everybody forgot about them for 20 years. And now suddenly they’re important again.’ Needham analyst Ryan Koontz told Market “So many of these old-school… industrial tech telecom companies [are seeing] a total new life in supporting the needs of AI.” /iStockphoto Under the ground and below the ocean’s surface lie millions of miles of glass strands thinner than a human hair. Data runs through the glass, in the form of pulses of light, at the speed of over 100,000 miles per second.

At the dawn of the internet, a select group of companies made a killing creating the equipment and business model for the system of glass strands bundled in cables, known as a fiber-optic network. Copyright ©2026 MarketWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Stocks face a growing list of threats — so why are investors staying so calm?

AI leaders want to ‘pace the frontier’ as part of a safety slowdown. Amazon, Palantir and 12 more top tech stock picks from UBS analysts It’s almost impossible to sell a condo unit these days: ‘I feel trapped’ Hannah Pedone is a New York–based technology reporter for MarketWatch. Intraday Data provided by FACTSET and subject to terms of use.

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