Shares surged nearly 19% to $121.00 in after-hours trading Wednesday after Cisco delivered a blockbuster Q3 that shattered expectations on every metric that matters — revenue, earnings, guidance, and most critically, its AI order pipeline. The company posted adjusted EPS of $1.06 versus the $1.04 expected, on revenue of $15.84 billion versus the $15.56 billion consensus. For a company long viewed as an aging infrastructure giant, the move — potentially its sharpest rally since 2002 — signals Wall Street is repricing Cisco as an AI winner.

• AI Orders Nearly Doubled and That Changes the Entire Math

Cisco said it has booked $5.3 billion in AI infrastructure orders this fiscal year and raised its full-year order forecast to $9 billion, up from $5 billion. Expected AI revenue jumped to $4 billion from a prior $3 billion projection. That's not incremental growth — it's a fundamental step-change. CFO Mark Patterson called it "reasonable" to expect at least $6 billion in AI hyperscale revenue in fiscal 2027 , giving investors a forward growth anchor they didn't have 24 hours ago.

• Guidance Leapfrogged the Street by a Full Billion Dollars

Cisco now expects fiscal 2026 revenue between $62.8 billion and $63.0 billion, up from its prior range of $61.2–$61.7 billion.

Q4 guidance alone — $16.7–$16.9 billion in revenue and $1.16–$1.18 adjusted EPS — crushed consensus of $15.82 billion.

Management raised the bar by roughly $1 billion above what Wall Street had modeled.

• Cutting 4,000 Jobs to Fund the AI Pivot

Cisco announced it would cut nearly 4,000 jobs as part of a restructuring to shift investment toward AI and related growth areas.

The plan will cost up to $1 billion in pre-tax charges, with about $450 million hitting Q4.

The company is cutting legacy networking and parts of its security operations to fund AI networking, chip design, and cloud security hires. In plain terms: Cisco is shrinking old-world headcount to pay for its next-world bets.

• Networking Revenue Jumped 25%, Proving the Product Cycle Is Real

Networking revenue hit $8.82 billion, up 25%, beating the $8.47 billion analyst consensus.

Total product orders climbed 35%. These aren't one-time spikes — they reflect demand from cloud giants building out massive AI data centers, using Cisco's own chips and optical equipment rather than resold third-party gear. At $121, shares now sit well above the $89.54 average analyst price target , meaning the stock has priced in execution that must keep accelerating to justify the new level.