While Nvidia was named the word’s most expensive company this week, those with long memories can remember the days when Cisco was the belle of the ball, thanks mostly to the Internet and the dot.com boom.

Former Cisco CEO John Chambers, who led the company during the dot-com boom, said the implications of AI are larger than the internet and cloud computing combined, but the dynamics differ.

He told WSJ that the implications in terms of the size of the market opportunity are those of the Internet and cloud computing combined.

"The speed of change is different, the size of the market is different, the stage when the most valuable company was reached is different."

Chambers said Nvidia CEO Huang was working from a different playbook than Cisco but was facing some similar challenges. Nvidia has a dominant market share, much like Cisco did with its products as the internet grew, and is also fending off rising competition.

 Also like Nvidia, Cisco benefited from investments before the industry became profitable. "We were absolutely in the right spot at the right time, and we knew it, and we went for it," Chambers said.