5-Year Forecast: Hyperscale and AI to Drive Server Access Speed to 100 Gbps and Beyond

We identify the market and technology drivers below that are likely to drive the adoption of next-generation server connectivity based on 100 Gbps and beyond:

50 Gbps ports, based on two 28 Gbps SerDes lanes, have been deployed in mainstream among some of the major Cloud SPs. However, with the exponential growth of network traffic and proliferation of cloud computing, the Top 4 US Cloud SPs are demanding even higher server access speeds than the rest of the market. The availability of 56 Gbps SerDes since late 2018 has prompted some of the Top 4 US Cloud SPs to upgrade their networks to 400 Gbps, with upgrades in server network connectivity to 100 Gbps for general-purpose computing in progress.
Higher server access speeds of up to 200 Gbps, based on two lanes of 112 Gbps SerDes, could begin to ramp for general-purpose computing for the Top 4 US Cloud SPs following network upgrades 800 Gbps as early as 2022.
The increase in demand for bandwidth-hungry AI applications will continue to push the boundaries of server connectivity. Today, 100 Gbps is commonly used to interconnect accelerated servers, while general-purpose servers are connected at 25 or 50 Gbps. As 100 Gbps become the standard connection for general-purpose in several years for the major Cloud SPs, accelerated servers may be connected at twice the data rate at 200 Gbps.