Nvidia Joins Cybersecurity Giants to Shield Critical Infrastructure

Nvidia is collaborating with several companies to bring accelerated computing and artificial intelligence to cybersecurity systems in the energy, manufacturing, transportation and utilities sectors.

These operational technology (OT) environments and industrial control systems (ICS) are adopting enterprise networks and the cloud, which increases their exposure to cyberthreats, the company said in a Monday (Feb. 23) blog post.

Through its collaborations with cybersecurity providers Akamai, Forescout, Palo Alto Networks and Xage Security, and industrial automation firm Siemens, Nvidia is helping to enable real-time threat detection and response across critical infrastructure, according to the post.

Nvidia is working with Forescout to apply the principles of zero trust to OT environments; with Siemens and Palo Alto Networks to embed security into industrial automation; with Akamai to enable agentless segmentation in OT and ICS; and with Xage to bring zero-trust security to both energy infrastructure and the AI systems that infrastructure supports, per the post.

In each of these cases, security services run at the edge on Nvidia BlueField data processing units (DPUs), close to the operational systems they protect; OT data generated at the edge is sent to centralized AI factories where it is analyzed across many sites to identify emerging threats; and security actions are enforced locally at the edge, according to the post.

“This architecture helps detect and contain threats faster while strengthening resilience across distributed environments, maintaining consistent performance and protecting uptime,” Nvidia said in the post. “The result is a new standard for securing critical infrastructure — where AI-driven protection and operational excellence move forward together.”

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said in April that ransomware operators are targeting critical sectors, including manufacturing, financial services, information technology, healthcare and government facilities. Nearly half of all ransomware complaints received by the IC3 in 2024 involved those critical infrastructure organizations.

In April 2024, the federal government highlighted the need for enhanced safeguards as AI increasingly integrates into essential sectors such as energy, transportation and healthcare. It did so in recommendations issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which offers a playbook to help companies navigate the treacherous landscape of cybersecurity, including the dangers lurking in AI.