--- title: "Nvidia's networking hit $17.5 billion, more than Cisco's product sales; Arista Networks reports Tuesday" description: "Nvidia's networking revenue hit $17.5 billion last quarter, more than Cisco's entire product line, and its switches now follow the chip vendor into clusters that never bought an Nvidia GPU. Arista, whose two anchor customers are 42% of revenue, reports Tuesday." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Data Center" published: 2026-11-01T15:18:02.533Z modified: 2026-11-01T15:18:02.533Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/nvidia-s-networking-hit-17-5-billion-more-than-cisco-s-product-sales-arista-networks-reports-tuesday language: en keywords: "Arista Networks, Nvidia, Networking, Data Centers, Earnings" --- # Nvidia's networking hit $17.5 billion, more than Cisco's product sales; Arista Networks reports Tuesday > Nvidia's networking revenue hit $17.5 billion last quarter, more than Cisco's entire product line, and its switches now follow the chip vendor into clusters that never bought an Nvidia GPU. Arista, whose two anchor customers are 42% of revenue, reports Tuesday. November 1, 2026. Two models of selling the AI network, the bundle and the best-of-breed, get their first head-to-head reading at an earnings call on Tuesday. ## Nvidia paid $6.9 billion for the wires, and the wires now outsell all of Cisco Start with what changed. [Nvidia](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/nvidia), the AI chip company, paid $6.9 billion for networking specialist Mellanox in 2019 to sell datacenter systems rather than chips [1]. In the May-July quarter its networking revenue topped $17.5 billion, more than [Cisco](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/cisco)'s entire product revenue of $17.3 billion over the same period, and The Register [reports Nvidia now sells more datacenter Ethernet than any other vendor](https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/10/31/backbone-of-a-beast-charting-nvidias-rise-to-networking-titan/5306499) [1]. *Chart: **One Nvidia line beat all of Cisco's products last quarter** Bar chart comparing Nvidia networking revenue of $17.5B, Cisco total product revenue of $17.3B and Arista Networks total revenue of $3.04B, all for the May to July 2026 quarter.* *Revenue for the May to July 2026 calendar quarter, US dollars in billions. Nvidia networking revenue and Cisco total product revenue per The Register, drawing on Nvidia CFO commentary; Arista Networks fiscal Q2 2026 (ended June 30, 2026) total revenue from its SEC filings. [1][5]* The milestone is arithmetic, but the mechanism behind it is the story. Every GB200 NVL72 rack ships with nine NVSwitch trays that fuse 72 GPUs into one logical GPU, so buying the rack buys the switch [1]. Dell'Oro Group analyst Sameh Boujelbene estimates NVSwitch is now roughly one-third of Nvidia's networking revenue, up from nearly zero two years ago [1]. Customers choose Nvidia for its tightly integrated compute and networking architecture because it speeds time to market, she says, and Recursion chief technology officer Ben Mabey bought his interconnect from the same vendor as his GPUs for exactly that reason [1]. [Meta](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/meta)'s million-GPU Prometheus site in New Albany, Ohio runs Nvidia Spectrum-X Ethernet, as did Musk's Colossus cluster [1]. ## The same two buyers feed both machines Then NVLink Fusion. [Marvell](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/marvell), [Qualcomm](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/qualcomm), [Arm](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/arm), Fujitsu, MediaTek and d-Matrix plan chips built on Nvidia's interconnect, and those chips still need Nvidia's NVSwitch trays, which Nvidia has licensed to nobody [1]. The switch money now follows the chip vendor, into clusters that never bought an Nvidia GPU. Which brings the charge against [Arista Networks](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/arista-networks), the best-of-breed Ethernet maker reporting Q3 results Tuesday after the close [2]. One end customer took 26% of Arista's fiscal 2025 revenue and another 16%, 42% from two buyers, both above 10% every year since fiscal 2023, per [its annual report as recirculated on X this week](https://x.com/AllFactsAI/status/2115526610065465491) [2]. [TradingKey names them independently](https://www.tradingkey.com/news/market-movers/262261368-market-movers-anet-20261030): [Microsoft](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/microsoft) and Meta, Arista's only 10%-plus anchors [3]. Those are the same buyers running Nvidia Spectrum-X in their training clusters [1]. Arista's growth and Nvidia's attach machine drink from the same well. ## Arista's exhibits: a record quarter, raised guidance, a $3.5 billion AI target Arista's record says the business grows either way. Revenue hit a record $3.04 billion in the June quarter, up 37.7%, the first $3 billion quarter in company history, and [fiscal 2026 guidance was raised to $12.6 billion, 40% growth](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/10/29/down-20-from-highs-is-arista-networks-a-genius-buy-or-a-trap-before-earnings/) [4]. Arista counts more than 100 cumulative Etherlink AI fabric customers and targets at least $3.5 billion in AI fabrics revenue this year [4]. *Chart: **Arista doubled quarterly revenue in ten quarters** Column chart of Arista Networks quarterly revenue, rising from $1.57B in the quarter ended March 2024 to a record $3.04B in the quarter ended June 2026.* *Arista Networks quarterly revenue, US dollars in billions, fiscal quarters ended March 2024 through June 2026, from its SEC filings. Year-over-year growth accelerated from 16.3% in Q1 2024 to 37.7% in Q2 2026. [5]* ## Cross-examination: margin is the tell The complication sits in the margin line. Gross margin slipped to 63.4% in Q2 from 65.6% a year earlier, and CEO [Jayshree Ullal](https://theinference.org/markets/people/jayshree-ullal) said price increases will help only towards the end of the year or more like next year [4]. To lock supply through a component shortage management expects to run until 2028, [purchase commitments reached $9.7 billion](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001596532) [4][3]. The market is not forgiving the cost of admission: the stock fell 8.51% on October 30 against a 5.97% sector decline, and it trades near 45x forward fiscal 2026 earnings, 18 to 20% below its October high of $217.41 [3]. Last quarter a beat still cost shareholders 13.61% [4]. ## Verdict watch: Tuesday, November 3, after the close [Consensus wants $3.33 billion in revenue and $1.08 of EPS, roughly 44% growth](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/anet-stock-smart-investment-option-121000945.html) [6][4]. The numbers that decide the argument are margin and the AI revenue Arista says it keeps: front-end fabric and non-Nvidia back-end is merchant share, volume riding Nvidia racks is an echo. About $196,000 of call premium went in ahead of the print per one options-flow tracker [7], against a tape already battered by [Alphabet](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/alphabet), [Amazon](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/amazon) and [Intel](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/intel) [8]. Buying the rack buys the switch. Tuesday shows what is left to buy. ## Takeaway Nvidia's networking revenue passed Cisco's entire product line because NVSwitch rides every GB200 rack and NVLink Fusion now carries the switch into clusters that never bought an Nvidia GPU. Arista, whose two anchor customers are 42% of revenue and whose gross margin slipped to 63.4%, reports Tuesday: margin and the AI fabric revenue it keeps as merchant decide the argument. ## Sources 1. [The Register, Backbone of a beast: charting Nvidia's rise to networking titan, 31 October 2026](https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/10/31/backbone-of-a-beast-charting-nvidias-rise-to-networking-titan/5306499) 2. [@AllFactsAI on X, Arista customer concentration: 42% of revenue from two customers, collected 30 October 2026](https://x.com/AllFactsAI/status/2115526610065465491) 3. [TradingKey, Arista Networks Inc Stock (ANET) Moved Down by 8.51% on Oct 30: Drivers Behind the Movement, 30 October 2026](https://www.tradingkey.com/news/market-movers/262261368-market-movers-anet-20261030) 4. [24/7 Wall St., Down 20% From Highs, Is Arista Networks a Genius Buy or a Trap Before Earnings?, 29 October 2026](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/10/29/down-20-from-highs-is-arista-networks-a-genius-buy-or-a-trap-before-earnings/) 5. [Arista Networks quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 1 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001596532) 6. [Zacks via Yahoo Finance, Is ANET Stock a Smart Investment Option Before Q3 Earnings Release?, 28 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/anet-stock-smart-investment-option-121000945.html) 7. [Stocktwits, @GlobalTradersAcademy on $ANET: $196K into ANET calls ahead of the Nov 3 print, 31 October 2026](https://stocktwits.com/GlobalTradersAcademy/message/667798873) 8. [Yahoo Finance, A big sell-off collides with more Big Tech earnings and a midterm election: What to watch this week, 1 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/a-big-sell-off-collides-with-more-big-tech-earnings-and-a-midterm-election-what-to-watch-this-week-110000657.html) --- Nvidia's networking hit $17.5 billion, more than Cisco's product sales; Arista Networks reports Tuesday — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/nvidia-s-networking-hit-17-5-billion-more-than-cisco-s-product-sales-arista-networks-reports-tuesday