Cisco Partners with NVIDIA to Unleash the Power of Hybrid Workspaces

• 26 Oct 2023
• TM Team
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Cisco  unveiled the next milestone of its ongoing work with NVIDIA to deliver AI-powered meetings for hybrid workers. Cisco announced the launch of Room Kit EQX and the expansion of its Cinematic Meetings capabilities — both powered by NVIDIA's AI engine — with the goal of enhancing collaboration experiences with audio and video intelligence and enabling more equitable hybrid meetings.

"In order for people to want to come to the office, companies must fundamentally reimagine and reconfigure workspaces to provide seamless and immersive collaboration experience," said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Security and Collaboration. "Our collaboration with NVIDIA helps make this possible as we expand our portfolio of AI-powered solutions that unlock the potential of hybrid workers."

The integration of video devices supporting AI and machine learning is critical to ensuring the longevity of investments made to deliver hybrid work experiences. The tight integration of Cisco's world-class hardware, leading conference room operating system, RoomOS, and NVIDIA's AI capabilities allows Cisco to deliver the industry's most capable AI and machine learning platform— enabling 20x the AI capabilities of previous generations.

"Edge AI is playing a vital role in bringing autonomy and improving productivity across many industries," said Deepu Talla, Vice President of Embedded and Edge Computing, NVIDIA. "Cisco and NVIDIA have been pioneering the use of AI to enhance collaboration in the workplace, and the new line of products will bring transformative technology to this space."

Room Kit EQX = Beautiful, Future-of-Meeting Rooms

Cisco has reimagined its portfolio of devices with NVIDIA AI modules, featuring solutions for any cost point and workspace. The highest priority for many customers is refreshing medium to large spaces, which are often flagship rooms for high-stakes meetings. Up until now, video-enabling these spaces has been complex, requiring integrators to stitch together multiple audio, video and furniture components, and requiring a specialist on-site to deploy. 

The Room Kit EQX is a new, integrated collaboration solution that allows customers to deploy beautiful, future-of-meeting rooms simply and consistently across sites.

Benefits for hybrid workers include:

·       Simplified deployment and maintenance: Customers benefit from flexible mounting options, including wall-mounted or free-standing, in some cases eliminating the need for permits and added building costs. This device also eliminates the need for patchwork speaker solutions, mounting options and furniture enclosures, reducing both time and cost to deploy flagship spaces.

·       Advanced audiovisual capabilities: Leveraging the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform to power advanced camera, audio and speech intelligence, the EQX reduces the feeling of distance between in-person and remote participants.

·       Interoperability across platforms: On RoomOS mode, the EQX features native Webex Meetings and powerful video interoperability with third-party meeting platforms. The EQX also natively supports Microsoft Teams Rooms augmented with the full-featured Webex Meetings.

·       Unified management and security: IT admins can take advantage of device management and workspace analytics capabilities in Cisco Control Hub.

The Room Kit EQX is available now.

Cinematic Meetings through Distance Zero

With an increasingly digitized and globalized workforce, meetings where everyone is physically present are no longer the norm. Cisco's Cinematic Meetings capabilities leverage an NVIDIA Jetson system-on-module to deliver collaboration experiences that reduce the impact of distance and make all meeting attendees feel like they're in the room, even if they aren't, a concept Cisco is calling Distance Zero. To create more equitable and inclusive meeting experiences for all meeting attendees, Cisco is bringing Distance Zero experiences to new workspaces and use cases:

·       New immersive workspace setups: Cisco is unveiling the blueprint for an all-new campfire-like boardroom experience. At the center of the configuration are four quad cameras and screens at eye-level, all configured in a circular arrangement to provide an immersive view of the content and remote participants. To ensure an equitable and inclusive experience, this setup creates the feeling of face-to-face collaboration for remote and in-person attendees alike.

·       Hybrid presentations: Customers can now experience cinematic meetings in auditorium and training style rooms. Cisco devices seamlessly switch cameras and views to provide remote participants with the best view of speakers, their content and close-up audience reactions. And in a new hybrid presenter mode, a remote and an in-room speaker can easily take the stage together for virtually in-person hybrid presentations.