According to data from market research firm Dell’Oro, sales of Ethernet switches for AI backend networks more than doubled year-over-year in Q1 2026, accounting for approximately two-thirds of total sales of AI cluster data center switches.
Sameh Boujelbene, Vice President of Dell Oro, stated, “The rapid expansion of AI clusters continues to drive demand for high-performance backend networks. Despite the recovery in the InfiniBand market, Ethernet remains dominant. InfiniBand product sales more than doubled this quarter, benefiting from volume shipments of 800Gbps switches for the NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra platform. While some of this growth came from new data center projects, we believe the majority of demand stemmed from upgrades to existing data centers rather than new data center infrastructure expansion.”
He added, “The landscape of AI backend Ethernet switch vendors has been highly volatile. Celestica reclaimed the top spot this quarter, followed closely by NVIDIA in second place; Arista ranked third due to deferred revenue from some AI products. If deferred revenue is included, its AI…” Sales of backend switches are approaching those of Tianhong and Nvidia. Cisco saw the largest increase in market share this quarter, ranking fourth. In the future, with the diversification of downstream customers, intensified competition among manufacturers, and product iterations towards higher speeds, the market share of vendors will continue to be reshaped.
This quarter, 800Gbps switches accounted for the absolute majority of shipments and revenue in the AI ??backend Ethernet switch market.
1600Gbps switches have now entered the sample testing phase, with mass production ramping up expected in the second half of 2026. This will bring new growth points to the industry and simultaneously trigger a new round of vendor share restructuring.
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