Generative AI was a 1H25 growth engine in the data center Ethernet switch segment
Driven by the growing demands from generative AI, a new report from Crehan Research revealed that the data center Ethernet switch market saw a robust increase in the first half of 2025, with revenues and shipments each growing by 25% year-over-year.
Amidst the generative AI growth, 800 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch deployments jumped.
Crehan noted that the adoption of 800 GbE is turning out to be much faster than that of 400GbE.
This is especially true for branded 800GbE data center switching, with an adoption curve, to date, that is almost one hundred times better than that of 400GbE.
From a vendor perspective, Arista, H3C and Huawei led the pack.
Arista’s 800GbE shipments neared a 3 million port annualized run-rate in the second quarter, its quickest ever timeframe to approach this quarterly amount with a new Ethernet speed. Because of its results, Arista took the top market share position in the 800GbE branded data center switch segment.
H3C benefited from strong hyperscaler demand in China. The vendor saw its 400GbE shipments more than double in the second quarter, to surpass a million ports in the quarter. Crehan said that H3C currently has the second largest market share in branded data center 400GbE switch shipments.
Finally, Huawei’s data center Ethernet switch revenue almost doubled sequentially on the strength of AI network deployments, and its switches are part of the recently introduced CloudMatrix 384 AI system.
"The networking of large generative AI cluster build-outs is driving some dramatic quarter-to-quarter market share shifts at the highest speeds of the data center Ethernet switch market," Crehan said.
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