ABI Research Forecasts Open Line System Revenue Growth to About $5 Billion by 2035

ABI Research forecasted that Open Line System (OLS) scale-across revenue in the United States would reach about US$5 billion by 2035, with growth tied to hyperscaler Tier One deployments. The forecast pointed to how distributed AI training deployments changed requirements for data center connectivity.

The report said AI training mega-clusters increasingly split across smaller data centers to address power constraints and grid connection delays. ABI Research characterized this as demand for optical systems that let distributed assets operate as a logical data center.

ABI Research attributed those requirements to AI infrastructure and said connectivity became a strategic differentiator rather than a supporting layer. The report tied OLS to optical interconnect strategies for scale-across architectures and said it supported open, flexible, and cost-sensitive approaches.

ABI Research projected hyperscalers would remain the dominant segment in the United States, accounting for nearly 70% of OLS links deployed, and said Europe would shift more toward neocloud adoption. It also noted that established vendors such as Cisco, Ciena, and Nokia continued to dominate data center interconnect through scale and integration, while OLS specialists and newer entrants were positioned for demand. The report added that mature standards and open-source efforts including OpenROADM, OpenConfig, OIF, and TIP reduced vendor lock-in and broadened multi-vendor integration options.

“AI infrastructure is forcing a structural rethink of data center design, and connectivity is now a strategic differentiator rather than a supporting layer,” said Dimitris Mavrakis, Senior Research Director at ABI Research. “As operators distribute compute across campuses and regions to access available power, OLS becomes a natural fit because it supports more open, flexible, and cost-sensitive optical interconnect strategies for scale-across architectures.”

Provided by Globe Newswire on behalf of ABI Research. Click to read original content.