ANET · Earnings call · 2026Q3T · Full report

AI Data Center Demand

Arista Networks, Inc. · 2026-11-03 · Importance 20 · Surprise 24

Management described a very strong demand signal and demand environment, alongside new use cases and products expected in 2027. Large customers are deploying very large AI spines across data centers, with 576-port density, terabit scale, and multi-gigawatt deployments supporting security and performance needs. Smaller customers and colocation providers are also adopting scale-across deployments, typically using smaller footprints of 7280 switching and routing platforms.

Key facts

• Arista forecast greater than 10 gigawatts of deployment across 10 or more types of compute accelerators by the end of 2027.
• Arista expected to deploy new distributed AI capacity of 10 gigawatts or more by the end of 2027, with existing deployed gigawatts also present in scale-across.
• Arista is currently seeing more spending on back-end and AI fabrics, and expects front-end demand to catch up later.
• Arista expected scale-across to represent at least one-third of AI demand and likely more in 2027; the current-year split was roughly 70-30.
• Arista's larger customers are opting for very large AI spines across data centers, requiring 576-port density, terabit scale, and multi-gigawatt deployments for security and performance.
• Arista sees a very strong demand signal and demand environment.