The need to refresh unsupported equipment is driving the Campus Ethernet Switch market, and threats exposed by AI models such as Mythos will accelerate the replacement urgency, according to a new report from Dell’Oro Group.
“Enterprises are focusing on security audits and IT equipment replacement after reports of rogue AI agents hacking firms heightened fears of breaches,” says Siân Morgan, senior director at Dell’Oro Group. “Supporting multi-gig interfaces and more Power over Ethernet (PoE) becomes critical when replacing older switches.
“We foresee that by 2029, the Campus Switch market will no longer be dominated by sales of 1 Gbps ports,” Morgan adds. “Instead, sales of higher speed ports, from 2,5 Gbps to 400 Gbps, will make up over half of Campus Switch revenues.”
Additional highlights from the report include:
- Vendors are preparing for the expansion of industrial networks, fueled by physical AI.
- Revenue from modular form factors has been outpacing the market recently, but the trend is expected to reverse in 2026.
- Richer feature sets, including AIOps functionality, are expected to drive up vendor software revenues.
- WiFi 7 adoption and an earlier introduction of Wi-Fi 8 will grow multi-gig access demand.