We’ve spoken at length about the CHIPS Act for the […]

Cisco has officially launched Meraki Access Manager, a cloud-native zero-trust service designed to simplify network authentication and security management. Presented at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live EMEA 2025 by Alex Burger, Principal Engineer, and Stephen Orr, Distinguished Engineer, the new solution addresses complexities and management headaches associated with traditional RADIUS-based authentication and enhances security without the need for self-hosted infrastructure.

I want to take you back to the halcyon days of just a few weeks ago when we discussed the ways that NVIDIA AI chips were showing up in China even though they were under US embargo not to be able to get this advanced technology. This came as a result of a last minute policy decision from the outgoing Biden administration that blocked the Chinese from buying these chips. Now, companies like Microsoft are urging the new presidential administration to rescind the ban to give them access to the growing AI market in China. Chinese authorities are firing back at the ban by tellling their researchers to avoid visiting the US. And third parties are making a fortune reshipping shipments of restricted items to China from places like Singapore, where police just arrested three men charged with running an operation of that nature. This and more on the Rundown.

We’ve talked about quantum computing before but Microsoft created a quantum quake in the tech space last week. They announced a new quantum computer chip that took seventeen years to make. The Majorana-1 uses a brand new Topological Core technology that reduces error rates significantly and could create chips with as much as one million qubits of processing power per unit. Microsoft’s researchers reportedly created a new state of matter in the accompanying research paper published to Nature to help them create the method for increasing the power of the chip. This and more on The Rundown.

A report this week claims that Broadcom is investigating Intel’s chip design business and is contemplating an acquisition. The news comes from the Wall Street Journal and says that while Broadcom is interested in chip design they are not interested in the foundry business. Analysts are intriguied because that means that Broadcom could either use Intel’s designs to augment their existing lineup or perhaps package the businesses for sale to other partners or even competitors. This and more on The Rundown.

The amount of data that has been unearthed in the network over the past few years is astounding. We now have access to more information that we could ever hope to want about the status of packets transiting through the enterprise. But is this data causing networks to be more complex? In this episode of the Tech Field Day podcast, Tom Hollingsworth is joined by Pieter-Jan Nefkens, Matyas Prokop, and Dominik Pickhardt as they explore the rise in data-centric network design. They discuss the drivers behind the need for more focused deployments and how access to this amount of data is creating challenges for operations teams. They also look at how security plays a role in the amount of information gathered and what happens to it after it is collected.

We may only be a few weeks into 2025 but we’re ready to bring you more great Tech Field Day content! We will once more be broadcasting live from Amsterdam as we kick off Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live EMEA 2025. There are lots of exciting technology announcements that you’re not going to want to miss.

We heard the rumors back in November that the HPE deal to acquired Juniper Networks was getting a closer look from the Department of Justice. Last week we got confirmation that the DoJ will be filing suit to half the deal. The arugument from the government is that the result of the deal would be 70% of the market for networking equipment being held by just two companies. Specifically cited was the wireless LAN component, where the DoJ said there were only three major players. This was refuted quickly by both HPE and Juniper. The UK Competition and Markets authority and the EU have both cleared the deal. This and more on The Rundown.

The expansion of wireless spectrum technologies is affording new opportunities for growth. Existing areas are becoming more crowded as devices become more prevalent. This includes not only user devices but Internet of Things (IoT) as well. In this episode, Tom Hollingsworth is joined by Cheryl Connell, Ron Westfall, and Jason Beshara as they discuss how the growth of IoT has caused contention in the current Wi-Fi spaces. They also discuss how the opening of the 6 GHz spectrum band has the potential to create more room for growth, provided device manufacturers adopt these new areas with the guidelines the bring.

As we mentioned earlier, the early days of a US government change invovle a lot of new orders and announcements. After a week in office the current US administration announced a plan to impose import tariffs on Taiwan for a variety of goods, including pharmaceuticals, steel, and chips. The tariff was reported to be 25% but could be as high as 100%. In further comments the president said the goal of the move was to lure companies back to the US to manufacture chips domestically. However, the CHIPS Act was specifically called out as being problematic because it simply gave money away instead of punishing companies with additional taxes to change their behavior. This is definitely a developing situation but lets dive in. Al, what’s the ultimate goal here? This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown.