The Backbone of Modern AI Data Centers: Networking the Gray Space
Cisco, Thursday, September 3rd, 2026
Cisco explains how unifying data center white space and gray space networking improves AI facility uptime, security and efficiency.
Cisco argues that AI data centers depend on far more than compute, and that the gray space holding power, cooling and building systems is as operationally critical as the white space holding servers.
The post explains how Cisco unifies networking across both domains rather than treating facility infrastructure as a separate, often unmanaged network. Doing so strengthens uptime, improves security posture over systems that historically sat outside IT governance, and increases energy efficiency.
It is aimed at teams building or retrofitting facilities for AI-scale power and cooling demands.