Battle for AI Ethernet: NVIDIA VS Arista Networks

Benefiting from the boom in data center construction, Ethernet is accelerating its penetration in AI networking, with NVIDIA and Arista Networks fully driving the development of Ethernet technology.

In its latest report this week, Citigroup compared the product roadmaps of the two, pointing out that the accelerated penetration of Ethernet is bringing opportunities to NVIDIA and "switch leader" Arista. Both are closely synchronized in the development of Ethernet technology and are expected to launch high-speed Ethernet solutions in the near future.

Citigroup emphasized that for Arista, NVIDIA is a stronger Ethernet competitor than expected:

Although NVIDIA has just entered the Ethernet market, it is executing an ambitious and fast Ethernet AI product deployment that may align with Arista's AI roadmap;

NVIDIA has stated that they expect the Spectrum-X platform to become a multi-billion dollar product line within a year, highlighting that many customers are willing to adopt NVIDIA's bundling approach in the Ethernet field.

The Citigroup report points out that both NVIDIA and Arista Networks will have end-to-end 800G solutions by the end of 2024 or early 2025:

• NVIDIA's Spectrum-X platform is an integrated solution that combines software, Ethernet switches, Network Interface Cards (NICs), and Data Processing Units (DPUs). Previous articles have indicated that Spectrum-X can improve generative AI network performance by 1.6 times compared to traditional Ethernet. The platform integrates Nvidia Spectrum X Ethernet switches and Nvidia BlueField-3 super NICs to address bottlenecks in traditional Ethernet in AI applications.
• Arista's Etherlink technology combines Broadcom's Tomahawk 5 leaf switch (already available) with the planned Jericho 3 Spine product to be launched later in 2024, with software added on top.

Citigroup further states that NVIDIA and Arista may also have a consistent roadmap for 1.6T products (based on 102.4T chips), and the launch timing of Broadcom's next-generation Ethernet chip Tomahawk 6 will affect the market launch time of related products from NVIDIA and Arista.

• Since Tomahawk 5 has been in mass production since March 2023, it is expected that Tomahawk 6 (based on 102.4T chips) will begin production in early or mid-2025, based on the typical 2-year development roadmap for Ethernet chips.
• If the production timing of Tomahawk 6 meets expectations, switches based on Tomahawk 6 may enter mass production at the end of 2025 or early 2026. This indicates that Arista's 1.6T switch based on Broadcom may be launched slightly earlier or simultaneously compared to NVIDIA's 1.6T Ethernet product (Spectrum-X1600), with NVIDIA's product expected to be deployed in early 2026 In addition, from the Ethernet Alliance to the technology roadmap and speed development trends until 2040, it can be seen that the latest 400GbE and 800GbE standards for Ethernet have been established, while 3.2Tb/s is a possible future maximum speed