Cisco continues to gird its networking platforms against surging AI-related system demands and ecosystem competition, with its latest push behind a multirail open line system, a multihaul system, and a pair of new pluggables.

The new Open Transport 3000 Series is a multirail, open line system that integrates optical components for multiple fiber rails into a single line card. This is designed to improve deployment footprint and operational scale for large traffic demands.

Cisco touts the system as providing a 75% power reduction per rail; an 80% drop in rack space per rail; increased transmission capacity through the use of both the C- and L-band; and greater reliability and scalability for scale-across, data center interconnect (DCI), and long-haul deployments.

Lorenzo Ghioni, VP of product management for Cisco’s Optical Systems and Optics group, backed these claims in a blog post, explaining that multirail systems can support “several parallel fiber pairs, which significantly increase capacity and power efficiency.”

“By integrating multirail amplifiers, operators can easily scale to accommodate multipetabit traffic, while reducing physical footprint and overcoming power constraints,” Ghioni wrote.” Another way to keep power under control and maximize fiber utilization is to extend the conventional C-band architectures with [C- and L-band], effectively doubling capacity per fiber pair.”

Cisco’s NCS 1014 system now includes a 1-rack unit (1RU) line card supporting 12.8 Tb/s (12.8T) capacity through 32 octal small form factor (OSFP)-based ports for 100-gigabit Ethernet (100GE), 400GE, and 800GE clients. It can also support 800 ZR/ZR+ wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) trunks.

The platform’s 2.4T WDM line card is based on the Coherent Interconnect Module 8 (CIM 8) that can support 800GE clients, which Ghioni explained “can be mapped directly to a wavelength or inverse multiplexed across two wavelengths to maximize reach.”

Cisco claims the system can double optical transport density compared to previous iterations, and provides greater power efficiency and resiliency in DCI, metro, long-haul, and subsea applications.

One plug, two plug

On the pluggable front, Cisco unveiled a quad small form factor pluggable double density (QSFP-DD) pluggable protection switch module. The pluggable can switch traffic if a fault is detected in less than 50 milliseconds; provides a 90% improvement in rack space compared to other systems; and is compatible with contentionless and colorless add/drop architectures.

There is also a new Acacia-developed Bright QSFP28 100ZR 0dBm coherent pluggable targeted at access and edge deployments. It’s compatible with existing QSFP28 slots, has a less than six-watt power envelop, and can help migrate existing 10G links to 100G.

Bill Gartner, SVP and GM for Cisco’s Optical Systems and Optics division, linked the new products to the vendor’s recent EMEA event in Amsterdam. This included the launch of its Silicon One G300 platform that powers Cisco’s 102.4T N9000 and 8000 systems, its 1.6T OSFP optics, and its 800G Linear Pluggable Optics.

“As networks evolve to support the AI era, Cisco’s optical and optics innovations – driven by the One Cisco Platform and our leadership across silicon, optics, and systems – are the foundation for resilient, scalable, and power-efficient connectivity,” Gartner wrote. “Our platform approach delivers integrated and optimized designs which enables customers to scale rapidly, operate securely, and innovate with agility.”

Optical expansion into a growing market

That innovation is spreading across the ecosystem, with a number of vendors launching similar AI-based networking updates.

Marvell earlier this month expanded its coherent interconnect offerings with the launch of its 1.6 Tb/s (1.6T) ZR/ZR+ pluggables and two-nanometer (nm) digital signal processors (DSPs). That was followed this week by Broadcom unveiling its Taurus BCM83640 DSP that is designed to enable 1.6T pluggable modules and support 400 Gb/s (400G) per lane (G/lane).

Others that have recently launched similar platforms include Ciena and Naddod.

Dell’Oro Group recently reported that the global optical transport market returned to growth mode in 2025, climbing 10% year over year to reach $16 billion.

Topping the vendor rankings by revenue share were Huawei, Ciena, Nokia, ZTE, and Cisco, highlighting the continued dominance of established systems players in a market increasingly shaped by cloud-scale demand. In the fast-growing DCI segment, the leaderboard narrowed to Ciena, Nokia, and Cisco, with revenue heavily concentrated in North America.

The market’s recovery was fueled largely by hyperscale cloud providers investing aggressively in DCI infrastructure to support AI-driven workloads and expanding data center footprints. According to Dell’Oro Group, revenue from direct purchases of WDM equipment for DCI jumped nearly 40% in 2025, while direct cloud provider purchases overall rose about 50%.

“Sales of optical equipment for DCI spiked in 2025 due to huge demand from cloud providers,” Dell’Oro Group VP Jimmy Yu noted in a statement, adding that hyperscalers continued to account for the bulk of purchases, but emerging “neocloud” providers are increasingly entering the market and driving incremental demand.

Looking ahead, Dell’Oro Group expects the broader optical transport market to grow another 10% in 2026, with DCI expanding at a significantly faster rate.

Yu said one notable shift is coming: cloud providers are moving toward “scale-across” DCI architectures to expand AI data centers. Rather than simply linking facilities, operators are building dense, high-capacity interconnect fabrics to support distributed GPU clusters and AI workloads that require low-latency, high-bandwidth connectivity across metro and regional footprints.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the OSFP definition to octal small form factor.