Smart city technology usually gets discussed in the abstract: connected sensors, unified data, systems that respond in real time instead of waiting for someone to notice a problem. At Splunk .conf26 in Denver this week, that abstraction became something attendees could walk up to and look at.
In the Pavilion, the conference’s hands-on innovation area, Cisco built the LEGO AI Smart City, a scale model made entirely from LEGO bricks to show how data intelligence can turn a complex environment into a more efficient one. It’s a really cool exhibit. It’s also a useful, physical way to explain what PoE infrastructure actually does at the level of wiring, power and connected devices, not just the language used to market it.
What PoE Infrastructure Actually Does
A city, real or built from bricks, is a collection of systems that all have to run at once: lighting, sensors, cameras, signals and increasingly AI-driven monitoring that ties them together. The hard part was never the concept. It’s connecting hundreds or thousands of individual points without running a separate, dedicated system for each one.
That’s where Power over Ethernet changes the equation.
A single low-voltage cable can carry both electricity and data, so a light fixture, sensor, camera or other connected device is powered and monitored through one connection instead of separate power and data connections. Add an intelligent node at that connection point, and the system stops being a collection of standalone devices and starts becoming a network that can provide information about what’s happening at the edge.
This is one reason PoE infrastructure has become increasingly important as buildings add more connected devices. A single network can now carry the data connecting computers and the power and control running lighting, sensors, and other building systems.
At the scale of the LEGO AI Smart City, that relationship is easy to see. In a full-size commercial building or campus, the same basic architecture can extend across thousands of devices.
The Cisco Backbone Underneath
Cisco Catalyst switching provides the network foundation that makes this type of convergence possible, delivering connectivity and Power over Ethernet to lighting, sensors, cameras, controls and other connected devices.
Depending on the switch and configuration, Cisco Catalyst platforms can provide high-power PoE capable of supporting devices that require considerably more power than the access points and basic sensors associated with earlier generations of Power over Ethernet. That has expanded what can be connected to the network and what can ultimately become part of it. Fewer cables is part of the benefit.
Once power and data move through the same network, connected devices become visible in a way that traditionally powered devices often aren’t. Their status can be monitored, information can be collected, and changes can be made without treating every building subsystem as its own isolated environment.
That’s an important part of the backbone behind intelligent infrastructure. AI and software platforms can only make useful decisions when the information reaching them is accurate, timely and reliable. That underlying network is what connects the physical devices generating that information.
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Cisco’s LEGO AI Smart City, Built with Inspextor
MHT’s Inspextor nodes help power lighting inside Cisco’s LEGO AI Smart City at .conf26.
Cisco hasn’t made that detail part of its public materials for the exhibit, and this isn’t a headline product announcement. It’s a quiet, practical detail that happens to make the point particularly well.
On top of the Cisco PoE network, Inspextor nodes provide the intelligent connection between the network and the lighting they support. The nodes deliver power to the fixture while providing the control and device-level intelligence that allows lighting to become part of a larger connected system.
Watching that relationship play out inside a LEGO model, with Cisco networking underneath, Inspextor nodes at the edge, and connected lighting above, provides a small-scale demonstration of what a PoE-powered building looks like in practice.
The model also illustrates something that’s easy to miss at full scale. Lighting is a natural application for PoE infrastructure because it reaches nearly every occupied area of a building. Connecting lighting to the network creates thousands of potential points for control, monitoring and data collection while providing the physical foundation for sensors and other intelligent devices throughout the space.
A city built from bricks makes that relationship visible in a way a real building usually doesn’t. You can see the entire environment at once instead of seeing one fixture, one sensor or one network connection at a time.
From the Show Floor to Real Infrastructure
This year’s .conf26 conversation is heavily focused on AI, data and infrastructure converging into systems that can do more than report what already happened. Increasingly, the goal is to use the information coming from connected systems to understand conditions, identify problems and respond more intelligently.
The same transition is happening inside commercial buildings. As lighting, sensors, controls and other devices move onto shared networks, PoE infrastructure can provide a common foundation connecting the physical building to the software and intelligence operating above it. The LEGO AI Smart City offers a simple way to see those layers working together: network infrastructure providing connectivity and power, intelligent nodes connecting individual devices, and data moving from the physical environment into systems that can make something useful out of it.
MHT has been applying those same principles to full-size commercial environments through Inspextor, working with Cisco networking technology to connect lighting, sensors and controls through a common PoE network.
The LEGO AI Smart City puts that architecture on a tabletop where everyone can see it. The scale is different. The idea underneath it isn’t.
And once .conf26 wraps up and the LEGO bricks come down, those same principles will continue operating inside real buildings every day.
If you’re interested in learning more about PoE Infrastructure for your commercial building, contact MHT Technologies for a free project consulation.