Driven by emerging bandwidth needs from AI workloads and next-gen hyperscale general-purpose servers, Dell’Oro forecasts the Smart network interface controller (NIC) market to grow at a 42 percent CAGR and exceed $5 billion in 2027.
Dell’Oro said in a recent report that connectivity for accelerated servers for AI workloads and next-generation hyperscale general-purpose servers will transition to 200 Gbps and higher-speed ports over the next several years.
The research firm noted that total Ethernet Controller and Adapter market revenue is forecast to grow 14 percent by 2027. Specifically, 400 Gbps Ethernet adapter port shipments are expected to account for more than 10 percent of 25 Gbps and higher speed ports by 2027.
A SmartNIC is a dedicated piece of hardware that can accelerate networking, storage, and security functions. Also, these devices can perform virtualization, load balancing, and data path optimization. During the forecast period, Dell’Oro said that Smart NICs are expected to cannibalize Standard NICs.
“We recently raised our Smart NIC revenue forecast because of strong adoption among the hyperscale cloud service providers,” said Baron Fung, research director at Dell’Oro Group. “An increasing share of the hyperscale servers will be deployed with 200 Gbps and higher speed server-facing ports for accelerated computing and for next-generation general-purpose servers.”
Fung added that various shifts are taking place in the hyperscale cloud market. “While the hyperscale cloud service providers mainly deploy their internally developed Smart NIC solutions, some of the major open vendors such as Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA are making progress,” he said. “Furthermore, there are opportunities for the non-hyperscale market for off-the-shelf Smart NIC solutions, with use cases such as accelerated computing, distributed storage, and network security.”
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