Smart NICs to drive ethernet adapter market to $5 billion by 2026

According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, networks, and data center industries, we predict the Ethernet Controller and Adapter market to reach $5 Billion in 2026, with Smart NICs contributing significantly to the growth. Server network connectivity will transition to higher speeds, with 100 Gbps and higher-speed ports accounting for 44 percent of the shipments in five years.

“We predict Smart NICs will account for 38 percent of the total Ethernet Controller and Adapter market by 2026,” said Baron Fung, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “Smart NICs will displace traditional NICs for most of the hyperscale cloud infrastructure for general-purpose and high-end workloads such as accelerated computing. There are also opportunities for Smart NICs in the Tier 2 Cloud, Enterprise and Telco segments, with compelling use cases such as network protocol offloads, distributed storage, and virtualized network security applications. However, vendors would first need to address cost-of-ownership and implementation challenges before we see broader Smart NIC adoption outside of the hyperscale cloud market,” added Fung.

Additional highlights from the July 2022 Ethernet Adapter and Smart NIC 5-Year forecast report include:

• Total Ethernet Controller and Adapter market revenue is forecast to grow 10 percent by 2026.
• 100 and 200 Gbps will be the dominant server port speeds for the Top 4 US Cloud SPs—Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft—over the next five years.
• Smart NIC revenues are projected to grow at a 21 percent compound annual growth rate over five years, compared to 5 percent growth for traditional NICs.

CT Bureau