The competition between Ethernet and InfiniBand in AI infrastructure continues to intensify, with Ethernet maintaining its market dominance despite a significant quarterly surge in InfiniBand sales. According to the latest Data Center Switch—AI Back-End Networks Quarterly Report by Dell’Oro Group, Ethernet’s resilience highlights its growing adoption by hyperscalers and emerging cloud providers.
800G Technology Drives Market Momentum
The shift toward 800 Gbps switches has become a central theme in AI networking. Both Ethernet and InfiniBand segments benefited from accelerated demand for high-speed connectivity, driven largely by NVIDIA’s Blackwell Ultra platform and the proliferation of 800G solutions.
Sameh Boujelbene, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group, noted, “While InfiniBand switch sales grew remarkably in Q2 2025, Ethernet retained the lead, supported by large-scale AI clusters deployed by hyperscalers and new entrants in the cloud services space.”
Key Players and Performance Highlights
Three companies—Celestica, NVIDIA, and Arista—collectively accounted for nearly two-thirds of Ethernet switch sales in the AI back-end segment:
Celestica reported revenue of $2.89 billion in Q2 2025, a 21% year-over-year increase, bolstered by products like the DS4100 800G top-of-rack switch designed for AI/ML workloads.
Arista Networks saw revenue climb to $2.21 billion, up 10% sequentially and 30.4% annually, with strong traction from its 7700R4 series Distributed Etherlink Switch.
NVIDIA posted record Data Center revenue of $41.1 billion, contributing to total fiscal Q2 2026 revenue of $46.7 billion—a 56% annual increase. The company’s Spectrum-X platform, integrating Ethernet switches and SuperNICs, has emerged as a key enabler for scalable AI fabric connectivity.
Outlook
The 800G ecosystem remains critical to supporting next-generation AI clusters across enterprise and cloud data centers. With hyperscalers such as CoreWeave adopting Spectrum-XGS for multi-data center AI scaling, Ethernet is poised to continue its expansion—even as InfiniBand maintains a niche in high-performance, specialized environments.
The ongoing rivalry reflects broader industry efforts to balance performance, scalability, and interoperability in the age of AI-driven infrastructure.
