San Francisco – October 31, 2026 -- Merchant-built server-class Ethernet NIC revenue rose 40% year-over-year in calendar Q2 2024, reaching an annualized run-rate close to $5 billion, according to Crehan Research. The figures cover adapters, controllers and LOMs.

SmartNICs grow over 50% while mainstream NICs gain over 30%

Foundational/Performance Ethernet NIC revenue increased more than 30% year-over-year. DPU/IPU Ethernet SmartNIC revenue grew more than 50%. Crehan attributes the growth largely to numerous concurrent Ethernet speed and technology upgrades.

SAN FRANCISCO – October 31, 2026 -- Branded data center Ethernet switch revenue rose 7% year-over-year in calendar Q3 2024 to the highest quarterly level on record, according to Crehan Research. The result ends two consecutive quarters of decline.

SAN FRANCISCO – October 31, 2026 -- Combined data center Ethernet switch and NIC market revenue will double within five years to surpass $50 billion, according to Crehan Research's latest Data Center Networking Long-Range Forecast Reports.

Back-end AI Ethernet networking revenue to grow eight-fold

Generative AI is expected to be a major driver of the expansion. Crehan forecasts that back-end AI Ethernet networking alone will increase eight-fold and account for over one-third of total market revenue.

SAN FRANCISCO – October 31, 2026 -- Server-class Ethernet NIC revenues rose by $2 billion in calendar-year 2024, according to the latest report from Crehan Research. Market revenues have doubled in just three years, even though one of those years was weak because of a general market inventory correction.

Data center buyers shift more networking budget to NICs

Crehan's analysis shows data center customers are spending a greater portion of their networking budgets on Ethernet NICs. That share has risen even as the overall budgets grew robustly.

SAN FRANCISCO – October 31, 2026 -- The data center Ethernet switch market exceeded $20 billion in revenue and 100 million port shipments in 2024, a record year for both measures, according to Crehan Research.

Branded and ODM-direct segments both grow as late-year branded sales accelerate

A late-year acceleration in branded switch sales lifted the full-year total. Both branded and ODM-direct data center Ethernet switching posted annual growth.

San Francisco – October 31, 2026 -- The DPU/SmartNIC Ethernet market grew revenues and shipments by nearly 30% in 2024, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure accounting for most deployments, according to a Crehan Research report.

Two hyperscalers take most of the volume

Cloud service providers remained the main growth driver. Alibaba, CoreWeave, Google, IBM, Oracle and xAI made up most of the remaining shipments after AWS and Azure.

SAN FRANCISCO – October 31, 2026 -- Cumulative data center Ethernet switch sales will surpass $250 billion over the next five years, according to Crehan Research's latest Data Center Switch Long-Range Forecast Report. The firm attributes the figure to a steep ramp of scale-up Ethernet deployments in AI rack systems, added to existing hypergrowth in scale-out and scale-across networks.

SAN FRANCISCO – October 31, 2026 -- Server-class Ethernet NIC revenues more than doubled in two years, rising from less than $6 billion in 2023 to more than $13 billion in 2025, according to Crehan Research.

2025 delivers record revenue and record growth

The report says 2025 produced both the highest revenue and the fastest revenue growth the market has recorded. Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research, said the market has followed "nearly a vertical straight line" since the initial release of ChatGPT.

San Francisco – October 31, 2026 -- Fibre Channel networking sales grew 6% in calendar-year 2025, according to Crehan Research, extending a strong 2024 and lifting cumulative sales by more than 20% over two years. Both switches and Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) contributed to the increase.

Crehan Research said the 2025 results exceeded its own forecast for a growth year. Seamus Crehan, the firm's president, said enterprises continue to rely on the products for their most important applications.