Broadcom Unveils New Networking Chip Amid Rising Rivalry with Nvidia

Published: 16 Oct 2025

Author: Precedence Research

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The release of Thor Ultra, a next-generation networking chip, marks Broadcom's entry into the AI hardware market. In a direct challenge to Nvidia's hegemony in AI infrastructure, the company claims that this chip is designed to assist cloud operators in connecting numerous processing units to run large AI models. 
Thor Ultra is scalable, which allows for much higher chip densities inside data centers than traditional networking components. According to Broadcom executives, the design has undergone extensive testing for power, heat, and real-world deployment scenarios to ensure resilience under heavy load, and it doubles the bandwidth of its previous generation.

Alongside this announcement is a significant agreement: Broadcom will begin providing OpenAI with 10 gigawatts of custom chips in the second half of 2026. This is regarded as a strategic push into the AI infrastructure market. The business already reports $12.2 billion in AI-related revenues for fiscal 2024, indicating that it sees AI infrastructure as a key driver of growth.

Broadcom's overarching plan is to become a backbone supplier for AI systems, not just to sell chips. It has already influenced processor designs through partnerships with prominent cloud providers like Google and OpenAI and it hopes to integrate itself into data center networks further. Its next weapon in that mission is Thor Ultra.

In addition, Broadcom has highlighted that Thor Ultra is designed for future-proof AI workloads with support for emerging applications such as generative AI, large language models, and Complex simulation tasks. This could provide cloud providers with a strategic edge by reducing latency and improving energy efficiency across massive data center operations.

According to experts, Broadcom's push into high-performance AI networking could intensify competition with NVIDIA and potentially change the landscape of AI hardware supply chains. The company's integration of cloud partnerships, strategic supply contracts, and custom chip design indicates a long-term goal to establish itself as a key player in the rapidly growing AI infrastructure market. This move may also pressure other chipmakers to accelerate their innovation cycles, as demand for high-speed, scalable AI networking continues to surge. Broadcom is positioning itself as a critical provider for next-generation data centers, potentially revolutionizing how large AI models are deployed and managed globally.