Ethernet switching for front-end data center networks surged to a record in the second quarter of 2025, growing at a strong double-digit pace, according to a new market report from Dell’Oro Group. The gains were concentrated among Arista, Cisco, Huawei, and Ruijie, with Arista maintaining its lead in both front-end networks and the broader data center switching market.
“Over the past year, concerns have grown in the market over spending levels in data center front-end networks, as most focus and budgets appeared to shift toward supporting AI back-end infrastructure,” said Sameh Boujelbene, VP at Dell’Oro Group. “However, consistent with our projections, spending on front-end networks remained strong to support growing capacity needs in AI clusters. In addition, demand for public cloud services rose during this period of uncertainty.”
The results push back on the assumption by some experts that budgets have tilted heavily toward AI back-end fabrics. Dell’Oro reports that spending on the front-end—the layer that connects general-purpose servers and feeds accelerated systems for data ingest—remained robust as cloud providers scaled capacity for AI clusters and public cloud demand continues to rise.
In short: AI is lifting both sides of the data center, not just the GPU-dense back-end.
Front-End Switching Keeps the Lion’s Share
Front-end switching continues to account for well over two-thirds of total Ethernet data center switch revenue, underscoring its central role as cloud and enterprise operators expand. Port mix trends align with that momentum: 100/200/400 Gbps gear comprised more than two-thirds of front-end sales in the quarter, while most 800 Gbps shipments are still headed to back-end interconnects.
The report highlights sharp differences in how customers are sourcing their switches. Among the largest cloud providers—Top 4 in the U.S. and Top 3 in China—disaggregation is already the norm across most front-end networks, using white-box systems or branded hardware decoupled from a vendor network OS.
Outside that top tier, adoption is more measured. SONiC, the open source networking operating system, is helping second and third tier cloud players move to disaggregated switching without building their own OS, but Dell’Oro says front-end disaggregation remains limited beyond hyperscalers. By contrast, back-end fabrics may see faster multi-vendor adoption as AI clusters scale and buyers prioritize diversity and supply resiliency.
Optics technology remains a variable in the upgrade cycle. Dell’Oro doesn’t expect co-packaged optics to supplant pluggables in mainstream deployments until the 3.2 Tbps era, or roughly the 2028-2029 timeframe, outside of Nvidia’s footprint. That outlook suggests multiple years of runway for pluggable-centric designs as operators migrate through successive speed bumps.
Potential Guidance for Buyers
Taken together, the Q2 2025 data reflects a market that is broadening, not narrowing. AI training and inference are driving extraordinary back-end scale, yet those same workloads, along with a continuing boost in public cloud consumption, are reinforcing the need to maintain front-end fabrics that provide high-throughput, perhaps even increasingly high throughput.
For vendors, the gains are flowing to platforms that combine dense 100/200/400G portfolios with credible roadmaps to 800G and beyond, while leaving room for customers who want either vertically integrated systems or disaggregated stacks anchored by SONiC.
For buyers planning their next expenditures on capacity, the message is pragmatic: stay aligned with speed transitions where the ecosystem is most demanding today, assume pluggables will carry you through the near term, and treat investment in back-end networking as necessary to scaling AI. Meanwhile, Arista’s sustained leadership underscores that front-end network upgrades remain a major line item in the AI era.
