Jinan, November 11, 2016–The Inspur Group and Cisco today announced the official inauguration of their joint-venture company, Inspur – Cisco Networking Technology Co. Ltd. Shandong Governor Guo Shuqing, Inspur Chairman & CEO Sun Pishu, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, and Cisco Greater China’s Chairman & CEO Owen Chan along with Zhang Haitao, General Manager of Inspur – Cisco Networking Technology Co. Ltd, attended the inauguration ceremony in Jinan.

During the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States in September 2015, Inspur and Cisco signed a framework agreement for strategic cooperation for setting up the joint venture, with the support of the Chinese government. After over one year of efforts by both Inspur and Cisco, the joint venture was successfully set up and inaugurated today. According to the contract signed by the two parent companies for the joint venture as well as the joint-venture company’s Articles of Association, the headquarters of the joint-venture company will be located in Jinan, Shandong, with Inspur having a 51 percent ownership in the joint venture and Cisco 49 percent. The amount of registered capital is US$100 million. From the beginning of the business negotiation for the joint venture, the management of both Inspur and Cisco were very serious about building the management team of the joint venture. The two parent companies picked great management and technical personnel from Inspur, Cisco and China’s networking market to join the joint venture, which will develop and manufacture a range of products potentially including high-end products meeting the needs of customers based on the advanced and well-positioned technologies of both Cisco and Inspur. Besides, the joint venture will also maximize investment in team construction and research facilities, building networking R&D centers in Chinese cities where networking professionals are concentrated, to develop networking technologies and network application software. The joint venture will make important contributions to the healthy development of China’s networking industry as well as the development of networking professionals.

In a booming Internet and big-data economy, the integration between IT and CT becomes the inevitable trend, and the integration between basic IT equipment and networking products becomes the key to building cloud data centers. This has created new opportunities for the networking industry, and has also provided a solid foundation for the Inspur-Cisco partnership. The joint venture will utilize Cisco’s globally leading technologies and best practices in connection with the needs in the China market to develop advanced and reliable networking products and technologies for customers. The joint-venture company will follow principles of doing R&D in China, manufacturing in China and serving China so as to meet the needs of local market. The two parent companies have reached agreement regarding their cooperation in product, technology, and service. The two sides will seize the opportunity provided by the new generation networking technologies represented by SDN to gear up the development of networking products and technologies, and to deliver advanced technologies related to IT infrastructure, cloud, data center, smart city, big data and so forth to the marketplace. The phase one of the go-to-market plan is already kicked off, and the first products are expected to be officially launched next year.

The joint-venture project will become an important part of Inspur’s “cloud strategy”. It will further enrich Inspur’s data center portfolio and improve Inspur’s ability to build complete cloud data centers. Meanwhile, it is also a major move under Cisco’s long-term, sustainable development strategy in China, and will become an important addition to Cisco’s operations in China.

Over the past two decades, Cisco has been a trusted partner for customers, and has witnessed the milestones of China’s Internet industry together with them. Cisco maintains a long-term commitment to China and also pursues sustainable growth here. Inspur has also been in China’s government and enterprise markets for over 30 years. It has a deep understanding of China’s IT initiatives and IT customers as well as rich experiences in serving them. Inspur server, storage and other products are among the leaders in China and worldwide in terms of both technology and market share.

The partnership between two leading technology companies from China and US is in line with the interests of both countries and also provides a new model for the cooperation between companies from the two countries. It will provide independent and high-end products and solutions as well as building highly secure and trustworthy information infrastructures for China’s digitization initiatives. In the meantime, it will also breathe new life into China’s information industry, help optimize its ecosystem, and increase the entire industry’s competitiveness. The Inspur-Cisco joint venture will provide a benchmark for local IT companies to bring in advanced technologies from abroad and drive the independent and secure development of information technologies in China.