ABI Research ranks Ciena, Nokia and Cisco as scale-across leaders

ABI Research has named Ciena, Nokia and Cisco as leaders in its Open Line Systems for Data Center Interconnect Scale-Across ranking. The placement points to the growing weight of optical interconnect infrastructure as hyperscalers and neoclouds distribute AI workloads across campuses, cities and regions.

Vendor differentiation is increasingly tied to a combination of optical innovation, implementation scale and support for distributed AI infrastructure. Energy shortages and grid constraints are pushing operators to connect adjacent and regionally distributed data centers with large volumes of optical connections. Incumbent vendors continue to lead, according to the findings, because of their scale, integration depth and supply chain reach.

Hardware disaggregation has become mainstream, according to the research, shifting competitive differentiation toward amplification density, hut optimization and AI-driven orchestration software. Ciena was identified as the overall leader on the strength of its vertically integrated optical portfolio, Reconfigurable Line System and Hyper-Rail architecture. Nokia's standing rests on its compact modular platform, vertical integration and multi-rail roadmap.

Cisco's placement reflects its major coherent pluggable footprint, hyperscaler traction and growing scale-across optical strategy. Among mainstream vendors, Adtran leads the group, with recognition for its position in open and disaggregated optical networking, in-house amplifier expertise, zero-touch provisioning and orchestration capabilities. The findings come from the Open Line Systems for Data Center Interconnect Scale-Across competitive ranking report, part of the Data Centers research service.

“Open line systems have become a core architecture for scale-across AI data centers because operators need more flexible, power-efficient, and software-driven optical interconnect,” said an ABI Research analyst. “The vendors that stand out are the ones combining strong optical innovation with the implementation scale needed to support distributed AI infrastructure.”