Foundational NICs and DPUs/SmartNICs fuel Ethernet NIC revenue growth
As ChatGPT and other AI-based applications have come to the forefront, the demand for Server-Class Ethernet NICs has continued to rise.
Crehan Research noted in its recent report that Server-Class Ethernet NIC revenues more than doubled over the past two years.
Starting from less than $6 billion in 2023, the market surpassed $13 billion by the end of 2025.
Foundational Ethernet NICs are the connection of choice for connecting GPUs and XPUs in back-end networking, while high-speed Ethernet DPUs/SmartNICs are a common front-end connection.
The research firm noted that 2025 was especially strong, delivering not only record revenue but also record revenue growth.
“Following the initial release of ChatGPT, the server-class Ethernet NIC market has seen nearly a vertical straight-line trajectory in revenue growth," said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research.
According to Crehan's report, the rapid customer deployment of high-speed Ethernet NICs in generative AI networks has driven 200 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 400 gigabit Ethernet (400GbE) NIC sales to more than triple in the past year alone.
“Although generative AI has been the main driver of the recent rapid server-class Ethernet revenue growth, other market segments, including general cloud service provider compute, enterprise networking, and storage, have also seen very robust increases," Crehan said.
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