REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, security, networks, and data center industries, the smart NIC market will grow at a 42% CAGR and exceed $5 billion in 2027. Connectivity for accelerated servers for AI workloads and next-generation hyperscale general-purpose servers will transition to 200 Gb/s and higher-speed ports over the next several years.

“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. He added that an increasing number of hyperscale servers will be deployed with server-facing ports that have speeds of 200 Gb/s and higher for accelerated computing.

"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. 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,” added Fung.

Additional highlights from the July 2023 Ethernet Adapter and Smart NIC 5-Year Forecast Report include:

  • Total Ethernet controller and adaptor market revenue is forecast to grow 14% by 2027.
  • 400 Gb/s Ethernet adaptor port shipments are expected to account for more than 10% of 25 Gb/s and higher speed ports by 2027.
  • Smart NICs are expected to cannibalize standard NICs during the forecast period.