Fortinet Deepens AI Infrastructure Play with New Security Solutions for Data Centers
December 25, 2025
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence workloads is reshaping data center architecture, placing a premium on security solutions that can protect sensitive AI models and data without compromising the high-performance networks they depend on. This shift is creating a significant new battleground for cybersecurity firms with the technical capability to integrate deeply into the AI infrastructure stack.
Earlier in December, Fortinet announced a strategic push into this arena with new AI-focused security offerings. The company unveiled a collaborative Secure AI Data Center solution developed with Arista Networks, aimed at providing integrated network security for AI clusters. In a parallel move, Fortinet demonstrated a FortiGate virtual machine integration on NVIDIA’s BlueField-3 Data Processing Unit (DPU). This integration is designed to secure high-performance AI and private cloud workloads by embedding firewall, zero-trust, and advanced inspection capabilities directly into the server infrastructure, thereby eliminating performance bottlenecks and preserving critical throughput.
These initiatives represent a concerted effort by Fortinet to leverage its proprietary ASIC technology and fabric-based security architecture beyond traditional network perimeters. By positioning its solutions as core components for zero-trust, multivendor AI data centers, Fortinet is aiming to convert its established firewall installed base into durable, recurring revenue streams within the AI infrastructure domain. The company’s long-term narrative projects revenue reaching $9.2 billion by 2028, which would require a compound annual growth rate of approximately 13.1% from current levels.
Industry analysts suggest that if Fortinet’s hardware-accelerated, infrastructure-embedded security gains meaningful adoption, it could help offset an eventual moderation in growth from traditional appliance refresh cycles. The move deepens Fortinet’s role in AI-first architectures and expands its potential service and subscription layers. However, the near-term catalyst for the stock remains execution in areas like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and AI-driven services, with a key risk being a potential growth deceleration after the current firewall upgrade wave subsides, should newer product lines not scale rapidly enough.
Source: simplywallst
