Author of this article: Zhang Yifan
Editor: Shen Siqi
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Nvidia's leadership position in data centers is allowing investors around the world to explore potential growth points throughout the entire industry chain. However, the ASIC trend has expanded the market's perspective to more changes in the industry chain.
For a long time, InfiniBand (a communication standard for high-speed data transmission between servers and storage systems) has been the preferred method of interconnectivity for AI data centers.
However, Morgan Stanley pointed out that as ASIC chips gain more market share in the AI computing card market, Ethernet networks (a communication standard different from InfiniBand) will also significantly increase their position in AI data centers.
Namely, the two types of computing cards correspond to two industry chains: Nvidia——InfiniBand; ASIC——Ethernet.
Previously, the article "From GPU to ASIC, Broadcom and Marvell are the winners of AI dehydration" mentioned that as cloud computing companies and OEM manufacturers gradually adopt ASIC chips, the AI supply chain may become more diversified from the dominance of Nvidia.
In other words, the usage ratio of ASIC chips in future AI data centers will gradually increase, along with the familiar Nvidia chips, to contribute to the overall growth of the industry.
Morgan Stanley's report indicates that this change will significantly enhance the position of Ethernet switches in AI data centers, predicting that Ethernet's revenue share in AI data centers will increase from 38% in 2023 to 49% in 2026.
The reason why Ethernet is becoming increasingly important in AI data centers is because of:
1) The growth of ASIC in the computing card market;
2) Large-scale data centers hope to diversify their computing power, and Ethernet provides a more open and diverse ecosystem, helping companies reduce supply chain risks;
At the same time, Morgan Stanley also stated that data centers typically upgrade their infrastructure every 4-5 years. Among them, 800G Ethernet switches, as important products, will benefit first.
Starting in 2025, the adoption rate of 800G Ethernet switches will accelerate to cope with the ever-increasing data traffic. By 2026, 800G switches are expected to account for 28% of Ethernet switch revenue in data centers (compared to only 5% currently).
Morgan Stanley pointed out that benefitting companies include Accton, Arista and Cisco, with Arista as the representative already reflecting fluctuations in the market.