Cisco Systems Inc. sees a $100 billion opportunity in communications equipment for upgrading aging electrical infrastructure to a digital smart grid, CNET reported.
The San Jose-based networking giant’s CEO John Chambers was in Boston Monday to speak at the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, and he was expected to talk about the company’s opportunities in the smart grid.
Marie Hattar, vice president of marketing in Cisco’s Network Systems Solutions group, told CNET that the smart grid network will be “100 or 1,000 times larger than the Internet,” saying that virtually every home has electricity and many of them don’t have Internet access.
Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) isn’t the only company looking to invest in upgrading the electrical infrastructure -- numerous startups as well as Santa Clara-based Intel Corp.(NASDAQ:INTC) and Armonk, N.Y.-based International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) are ramping up their efforts.