Cisco and Quali Launch Platform to Deploy AI Infrastructure in Hours

Enterprise AI deployment gets a speed overhaul

Cisco and Quali announced Monday the general availability of Stack Automation by Quali, a deployment automation platform designed to compress infrastructure provisioning timelines from the six-to-twelve-week enterprise average to a matter of hours. The platform, developed in collaboration with Cisco and available exclusively through the networking giant, automates the deployment of complete infrastructure stacks including GPU clusters, AI frameworks, networking, storage, security, and enterprise applications within a single governed system.

The announcement, first reported by Automation Watch, addresses a persistent operational gap in enterprise IT. While cloud platforms delivered self-service infrastructure access to developers a decade ago, on-premises data centers have remained stuck in sequential, multi-team workflows. Setting up a new environment typically requires separate groups handling networking, compute, storage, and security through manual handoffs and approval processes that can span hundreds of individual steps before a workload goes live. AI infrastructure compounds the problem by adding GPU clusters, AI models, security policies, and application services that must be configured together.

How Stack Automation works

Stack Automation replaces manual coordination with what Quali describes as a cloud-like operating model for on-premises and hybrid environments. At the platform's core is the Solutions Hub, a catalog of pre-validated Cisco and third-party configurations covering major enterprise infrastructure components. Teams select from validated blueprints that automate planning and deployment while applying consistent configuration across environments.

The platform integrates with Cisco Intersight and Cisco Nexus Dashboard, and supports existing tools including Terraform, Ansible, and Kubernetes without requiring replacement. Stack Automation will become part of Cisco Cloud Control, Cisco's broader infrastructure lifecycle management platform.

"Customers should not have to spend weeks assembling infrastructure before they can begin putting AI to work," said Jeremy Foster, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Compute. "This can take customers from rack to application in hours."

Why it matters

The deployment bottleneck Stack Automation targets has direct business consequences as enterprises scale AI initiatives. Infrastructure delays translate to delayed time-to-value for AI projects, and manual processes introduce configuration drift that creates security and compliance risks. By automating full-stack deployment with validated blueprints, the platform addresses both speed and governance challenges that have limited on-premises infrastructure agility compared to public cloud alternatives.

Integrations and availability

The platform launches with integrations across Cisco's product line including Nexus Dashboard, Intersight, Catalyst Center, and Identity Services Engine. Third-party integrations include Splunk, Red Hat OpenShift, NVIDIA NIMs, VMware, Qumulo, and Veeam. Full-stack solutions including Cisco AI PODs are expected to reach general availability in October 2026.

Lior Koriat, CEO of Quali, characterized the current state as having "too many moving parts, too much manual coordination, and too little governance," positioning Stack Automation as addressing the problem across the full infrastructure lifecycle rather than at individual stages.

Stack Automation by Quali is available immediately through Cisco in two tiers. The Essentials tier covers standard software deployments, while the Advantage subscription adds advanced design, customization, and agentic capabilities for teams building and modifying their own blueprints. Organizations can access the platform through cisco.com/go/stackautomation or through Cisco representatives.

Details were first reported by Automation Watch.