San Francisco – October 31, 2026 -- The DPU/SmartNIC Ethernet market grew revenues and shipments by nearly 30% in 2024, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure accounting for most deployments, according to a Crehan Research report.
Two hyperscalers take most of the volume
Cloud service providers remained the main growth driver. Alibaba, CoreWeave, Google, IBM, Oracle and xAI made up most of the remaining shipments after AWS and Azure.
Adoption has so far stayed concentrated among companies that rent server capacity to customers. Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research, said the technology has "not yet seen broad penetration into markets beyond this."
Merchant-built DPUs outgrow self-built products
Self-built DPUs/SmartNICs still account for the majority of market revenues and shipments, which reflects the buying weight of the two largest cloud providers. The merchant-built segment grew much faster, however, as adoption widens beyond the largest few cloud service providers.
New deployment models could widen the customer base
Crehan cited DPU-enabled Ethernet switches and CPU replacement as new innovations, use cases and deployment models that should expand the customer base.