Top 3 technologies you need to learn in 2025
look I think there's a couple of really big things where industry has a gap and and I think in the future you're absolutely going to need these skills in any organization and you know we need people from different vocs we need people who think differently to join the sort of the fight the good fight um in the cyber security space. So is networking still cool should I still become a network engineer? Nothing happens without the network it's the foundation for everything you know I think this year we'll see the first introduction of humanoids into the workforce. That was my next question right yeah you can see the the the development of Robotics at an exponential rate as well. Everyone it's David
Bombal coming to you from Cisco Live in Amsterdam with another amazing guest Chintan welcome. Thank you David it's fantastic to be with you. yeah you're based in the UK right? I certainly am. And you've recently had a promotion so congratulations! Much appreciated thank you. Chintan before we get into the details perhaps you can give us like some future stuff like I like to always say someone who's starting today they need to ride the waves so perhaps you can put it in two different parts like individuals trying to make a career what are the waves they should ride and then also once you've done that like what about businesses what are the things that the Technologies or the Trends they really need to be aware of. Look I think there's a couple of really big things where industry has a gap and and I think in the future you're absolutely going to need these skills in any organization I think really good data skills okay are important because actually AI is only as good as the data that you feed it and so actually one of the things that we found in our research is most organizations are struggling with data because it's fragmented it's siloed and that's actually thating organizations from actually moving forward with AI so I i' I'd you know focus in on you know that data science side of uh the house because there's a big opportunity there for people who are starting out um I think also um cyber security yeah right the the world is becoming ever increasingly connected um the bad actors are multiplying not reducing and you know we need people from different vocations we need people who think differently to join the sort of the fight the good fight um in the cyber security space so I think anything uh people can do around building that skill set uh and that would be hugely valuable for industry and your career in the future. So data science something around AI cyber security is networking still cool should I still become a network engineer? Nothing happens without the network it's the foundation for everything so I think the the opportunity there is to to make sure that you're learning about the underlying technology that powers each of these things because if you don't go back to first principles and understand what the foundations are you can't really understand what the building blocks on top that you need to then take care of in the future so um I think as a as a network engineer it's never been more exciting because actually the networks now are even more critical than they were before and we're reinventing them so there's a new opportunity for a new generation to come coming to the workforce with a completely new mindset. Now Cisco happy birthday to Cisco 40
years old very exciting history revolutionized a lot of Technologies I remember Voice over IP many many years ago went from traditional telephony to Voice over IP changed the whole world basically and that's happened multiple times so perhaps you could tell us a little bit about the past but tell us you know what's what can we expect in the next 40 years very hard to make predictions but like where are we going? Look I think it's um you know we've had such a wonderful history uh and when you think about the impact our technology has had on Society on humanity and the world frankly it's incredible to to look back and be very proud of uh what we've done I mean you know that simple idea of allowing two people to connect disparate networks together and magic happened right and you think about you know what we all do now today and we take it for granted in many ways right and you wouldn't see the multi-billion dollar Industries um the economic impact the change that's happened in society if if that hadn't happened so so I do do we fondly remember that and we don't lose sight of that yeah because actually you know that connection that human connection that that made really um democratize access to the internet uh and and we we've seen the benefits of that right um access to new types of services um you know education Healthcare you know new forms of breakthroughs that we haven't seen before so you know I think I think the um the essence of what we've been doing as a company in terms of being that sort of digital technology provider for the World building the world's most Mission critical networks to allow us to do all the things that we do every day um I also reflect on the fact that from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep and everything in between now is there's a digital interaction in there and and we we have this insatiable desire as a human race to be connected just a few years ago we we reached a point where 50% of the world had come online we did take a pause at that moment and said well okay you know what have we learned from the last you know few years of Decades of connec the world and and and the world to the internet but also what do we need to build for the future and that's really where the company's been pivoting in terms of innovating um at the core infrastructure level you know that that that Network that's become this tissue connective tissue for society how how do we what do we need to rethink in this new era and our teams have just been doing a phenomenal job and I know David you've been part of some of this throughout the last few years but uh you know we're just really excited about what the network will do next. I think people lose sight of the fact how Cisco is involved in all of this I mean you open up Tik Tok on your phone or whatever app you like I mean I was I was talking to my daughter the other day and she she asked the question know why do we have cables because it's just magic these days it's like it's totally seamless just happens right you open up an app and something happens but I mean if it wasn't for all the work of Cisco engineers and people deploying the stuff that wouldn't be possible. The Innovation that's been built on top of um these environments is incredible and and I think you know we like to think about this as the network has been the platform and this platform effect that's allowed new Industries to be spawn new Services um new capabilities like the ones you've talked about you know this this sort of consumerization of Technology resulted um because we could give ubiquitous access to people I I do think there's a there's a there's a real opportunity for us to really make sure that we're you know innovating for the next era now and and making sure we're thinking about what are the Next Generation applications and workloads and uh environments that we need to to to essentially scale to and um I think that's a really exciting prospect as as you know we've seen Ai and you know you can't get away from it um that's the next big wave um and and we're still at the early stages of it we're still at the early stages of it but I I often have to remind people you know the network is the the one thing that touches absolutely everything you know whether it's the people, the processes, the GPUs, the physical data center, the satellite connection, the the humanoids that are potentially coming into our workforce, the virtual agents it's the common denominator so it's got a really unique position both none of this would happen without it but also you know how do we use it to harness some of the Innovation going forward. So I mean AI is all the rage at the moment like you mentioned I know some of the stuff you perhaps can't share where do you see things going it looks like there's huge Innovation happening at Cisco these days can you share anything about perhaps what's coming or you know where the excitement is where the focus is? yeah I mean there's a there's a ton of work going on around uh Cisco around AI in particular I we think about it in a couple of lenses one around you know how do we build first and foremost the the the technology to allow our customers to to build their AI environments uh and we're doing that from the biggest hyperscalers um we've leared a lot from working with all of them in building these large scale fabric environments for backend and frontend networks that that power these Big M you know large language models but then also how do we scale that to the Enterprise because most organizations are grappling with you know how do I do this with my own data exactly right and and I actually this realization that this data now is uh and are the crown jewels of an organization do I want to put this in the Cloud do I want to do this on premise do I want to do a mix of both you know there's all of that going on at the moment and we've really thought carefully about how do we take some of the things that we've done in the past you know we we've we've packaged technology solutions together uh like vblock and and and Technologies where we put converged infrastructure together to help solve some problems we're doing the same again you know the compute Network the AI stack together so that you can you can easily get started I think that's that's one of the challenges for many organizations is is this a big outlay do I need to um you know invest a ton of money to just get started and actually you don't really need to so you can start small and get get going so you know that that's going to be a really important area for us how do we make sure that as organizations build these things build these AI models that we we don't compromise Safety and Security for the sake of speed because right now you know there there's kind of two races going on people you got the big big providers building things there's a new model every week you know the pace is there you're sitting there looking at that you're thinking hold on I need to I need to do something we're saying is actually you need to run your own race with your own data with your own workload what's the use case that you really need to solve for and then and then build on that so um we've been really focused on the Safety and Security side of AI and we launched some amazing Technologies just this uh in the last week called AI defense yeah which really allows us to do algorithmic um uh red teaming as it were to to to make sure we've got some idea around the vulnerability of models what's actually happening because we see the same thing that happened with uh it Shadow it and then Shadow cloud and we're seeing Shadow AI so like you know does do you really know who's using what in your organization and and do you need to know you probably do so so actually AI defense does a really amazing job of of helping organizations in that space and then there's the um how do we use AI in our products um to help our customers and so you know we we we think about this concept of giving every um engineer secops devops netops person an assistant imagine if you've got a sidekick that can help you do your your job better y you can be more productive so we want to give superpowers to each and every one of our uh Team all the people that listen to your uh uh podcast and and and your show to say yeah are there things that we could use generative AI for that augment assist um in new ways so can I just use natural language to talk to my firewall well you can now we've now actually triggered inside our AI assistant for security Cisco support so actually you need to raise a support case it's right there you're not having to move from different platforms or applications and we're consistently doing that across our products um so you get compound value by integrating the technology together so these assistants are are there to help you and also give you your next best action right so actually I'm not sure what this really means well actually could give you a suggestion and a guide of what you might do next so we're seeing some tremendous uptake as a result of that. I mean it's it last 40 years obviously so much stuff happened but the pace seems to be picking up a lot recently. I coined this sort of in a phase where um we went through an era of Technology where um every organization had months years a few years to think about what that technology meant how they'd adopt it in their organization what it meant and and how they go about implementing it that time to deployment and time to execution has compressed significantly in the last few years y um even if you look at the big things that have happened over the last few decades around mobile and Cloud they they they didn't just happen overnight they they happened over a period of time what we've seen now and again back to that speed question right it's um it's very much a uh things happening in a very much of a compressed time and so our our sort of ethos around this is yes move at speed but don't sacrifice Safety and Security because um if you do move at speed there's every chance that you might do. DeepSeek is highlighted this I mean you could download a model run it within your organization
but it's your private data now and that could be easily exposed to the outside world it's a worry so let's look at different areas networking can you give us some ideas what's happening there security I mean AI we've already spoken maybe a bit more on that but like take different areas within Cisco and perhaps give us some updates about what's going on and where you see things going? Well I'm super excited about what we're doing in the network because I mean that that's our that's our core platform and uh the Innovation our our engineering teams are building there is is breakthrough this week we've announced um you know our new Smart Switch I mean this is probably one of the biggest changes to switching technology that we're going to see in a long time and really the essence of this is is how we are using new technology like DPUs and data processing units embedding them directly in the switch so that we can start to take workloads and services like security and fuse them directly into the fabric of the network you know that does a a number of things you know we're no longer in this world where there are so many threats coming at us from different perspectives so many different types of potential challenges um malicious actors wanting to to to target our environments you know where does how do those um threats move around they move around on the network they you know lateral movement happens on the network if we can stop it at source then that's a an incredible opportunity for us to protect our customers most valuable asset which is the data you know with the with the Smart Switch what we're doing is is making sure that you know that that enforcement point is right at the heart of the the the the infrastructure that that these workloads are sitting on and you know through Technologies like hypers Shield we're infusing security into that fabric where you can now have sort of micro perimeters sitting around kubernetes clusters containers and you know before you'd have perhaps um a perimeter around a group of Technologies now think about these micro parameters scattered around your environment uh intelligently protecting your your en environment in in a completely new way so you know really excited about that we've been continuously innovating on um the wireless side as well with Wi-Fi 7 right I mean you know if you look at the the the number of connections that we have um and the way things are being connected you know it's going to be connected wirelessly you know our desire to be more mobile is is there than than ever before we're seeing more things that are not stationary um they're moving um and things that are moving around and so that that that secure connectivity on the go um and density of connectivity that the likes of Wi-Fi 7 is going to provide is is hugely important going forward. So huge changes in networking speeds more mobile you've mentioned security a lot it seems to be a big focus of Cisco originally Cisco was known as a networking company and people forget Cisco been in many many areas including security seems like security is a big focus. For us security is table stakes right um we're we're not thinking about it as an add-on we we're baking it into every single product um it's the red thread that runs across our whole portfolio from all of our campus portfolio to uh Wireless to uh our service provider routing in you name it we're building it in because existentially it's important right um we we are running the most mission critical networks for our customers um it's no longer a nice to have it's a must have yeah and and we know for companies the the digital environment is in many cases the front door to their Organization for their customers the resilience needed in those environments is more crucial than ever before um as well as the bad actors are trying to thought this uh all the time so you know we're having to constantly innovate in that space and for us you know we are I think innovating in security at hypers scale um you know both from a product level and solving some of the challenges that are happening like I talked about AI defense uh where we're really you know unique in the industry to be able to do that the way we're stitching security together can only be done because we have the network platform underneath and and so this ability to see and sense everything that's going on and then be able to act on it very very quickly speed is of the essence when it comes to security y so um we think it's a it's a it's a it's a core principle to everything that we're doing going forward and we're going to continue to drive that. I mean the Network's expanding rapidly right because IoT devices are getting deployed more and more do you see that just continuing? Yeah look anything that can be connected is being connected whether we like it or not you know um I bought a new uh dishwasher a few weeks ago and it's connected you know so we're now surrounded by things in one way shape or form that are connected to the internet you know whether it's wearable technology in our homes in our workplaces um it's absolutely happening there there's another dimension to this which is the you know I think this year we'll see the first introduction of humanoids into the workforce. That
was my next question right physical devices. You can see the the the development of Robotics at an exponential rate as well and so really um that is that is another thing that's going to be connect in your environment but that's a thing that that can't possibly operate with any sort of latency or delay so the network becomes even more crucial and actually you need to secure that even more perhaps than you secure anything else right so and it's not just going to be one of them it's be many doing different things so you might be sending uh humanoids into hazardous environments, you might be sending them into environments where perhaps uh it is more dangerous for humans to go to or it may be more mundane things but actually providing that sec cure connectivity to them so that they can do what we want them to do is going to be important. I mean as soon as I hear you and other people talk about humanoids and I always see the flash of the Terminator and I think a lot of people will say is this a good idea so how do we stop the Terminator scenario you know with these humanoids. I think there's a couple of things right first and foremost um we we knowing what we know we have an opportunity to build in the guard rails in the way that we think we we need these humanoids to operate um I think you're you're you you look at this from a couple of dimensions one around you know what are we asking these humanoids to to do how are these humanoids going to interact with us and how are they going to interact with each other and and we've been working quite heavily on this concept of you know there's this notion of Agents AI agents uh proliferating our organization so along with sort of human beings you've got these digital employees that are going to be in your organization and then you've got these humanoid employees you know when we think about humans in the workplace we think about how the interactions are going to happen what are some of the common you know how do we converse you know what are our protocols you know what what do we know each other where do we go if I need to find out about you we're going to need to do those same things for agents you know how how do you know which agents are running in your environment how do you know what they do how do you know what they're supposed to be doing like I know I can access um the HR database and I can access um you know my employee information but should that agent be allowed to do the same thing what can it access right so so building that same muscle and process inside an organization going to be important and then you got to do the same thing for those humanoids as well um so there's actually a lot of learnings that we've got um as organization and things that we're already doing we don't need to completely rip and replace we do need to think about the different dimensions of how we think uh you know deploy some of this and there may be some new uh IT stuffs that we need to think about uh but our out shift engineering team have already been ahead of the curve thinking about this right and so they're they're looking at this concept of the Internet of Agent um which you can then apply across these different areas. I love
the new the idea of the new switches like what's happening in data centers it's like networking is some people have incorrectly perhaps felt that networking is kind of stagnated for a few years but now it's like on going mad it feels like. Data centers are invogue again right um and they're invogue because they're they're hugely important to countries companies uh and organizations and also because AI is driving a huge wave in that and so you know we need people because the industry doesn't have people who can build these environments fast enough and you you see you go week in week out you're hearing countries around the world you know investing in AI data centers for their own country for their own organizations so I I'd be I'd be inclined to to look at the full spectrum of um both networking data center compute technology about the environmentals you know these environments are huge they're they're energy consuming so actually people who can bring a mindset around Energy Efficiency and Cooling and you know structural design um is going to be hugely important in the future um as we go forward. What about companies or like people deploying stuff not early in career but people out there what are the things they should look at? yeah look I'm uh obviously I think AI go without question you you you've got to be in it and um there's no point you can never be too early right I think that's the thing with AI you can be late and and you kind of want to see this wave because we're still at the early stages of it whilst AI is taking all of the headlines uh um I want people to think about what's happening with Quantum technology as well um Quantum Computing is steadily increasing capacity capability companies and organizations are launching what we'd call kind of general purpose Quantum Computing technology if it gets to a sufficient point in terms of capacity then you know there's a there's a security risk there for society right um you you've got if you could get a general purpose Quantum computer today it could theoretically break into all elliptical curve cryptography and and hack into our conversation so um we've been staying ahead of that and we want organizations to think about that in terms of both how we're designing um networks for the future to be Quantum ready and enabled data centers to be Quantum enabled uh and using optical networking and we we've just announced some new research in that particular space and then around the cyber security space protecting the infrastructure that we have today um through postquantum cryptography um and new techniques like Quantum key distribution where we use the techniques of Quantum to protect the environment where where you know the state of Quantum is really interesting because by merely looking at a a Quantum Cubit you know that you've tampered with it so you know there's this this idea that you can create uh an ultra safe environment where people can't eavesdrop so I i' definitely look at that and then I think the the bigger picture around cyber security because there's a huge amount of things happening from a deep fake perspective um and identity and and I think identity is going to play an even bigger role in the future identity not only of us but also of these agents and of these humanoids and and how do we create a safe networked environment to allow everybody to operate. Should not getting told off we have to wrap this up unfortunately thanks so much for sharing. Thank you so much for having me appreciate it.
2025-03-09 12:39
