Arista Networks Shares Fall as NVIDIA Expands Spectrum-X Adoption
Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET) shares fell 2.4% on Monday after NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced that Meta (NASDAQ: META) and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) will adopt its Spectrum-X Ethernet networking switches to power their next-generation AI data centers.
According to NVIDIA, Meta will integrate Spectrum Ethernet switches into its Facebook Open Switching System (FBOSS) infrastructure, while Oracle plans to use the same technology to build giga-scale AI supercomputers.
The announcement sparked concerns among investors about growing competition for Arista Networks, a leading provider of cloud networking and data center solutions. With NVIDIA’s increasing presence in AI networking technology, analysts believe Arista could face mounting pressure in its core market.
NVIDIA described the Spectrum-X Ethernet platform as purpose-built for the trillion-parameter AI model era, enabling hyperscalers to interconnect millions of GPUs with exceptional speed and efficiency. The company said its congestion-control technology delivers up to 95% data throughput, compared to roughly 60% achieved by standard Ethernet solutions at scale.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang highlighted the platform’s importance, saying:
“Spectrum-X is not just faster Ethernet — it’s the nervous system of the AI factory, connecting millions of GPUs into one massive computer to train the world’s largest AI models.”
The market’s reaction reflects investor caution, as NVIDIA’s growing footprint in networking signals potential disruption in an industry long dominated by companies like Arista Networks. Analysts note that as AI infrastructure continues to evolve, the lines between networking hardware and AI computing are increasingly blurring.
