Nvidia is quietly building a multibillion-dollar behemoth to rival its chips business

Nvidia's networking division, originating from its 2020 acquisition of Mellanox for $7 billion, has quietly become the company's second-largest revenue driver with $11 billion in quarterly revenue (267% YoY growth) and over $31 billion annually. The division encompasses technologies like NVLink, InfiniBand Switches, Spectrum-X, and co-packaged optics that together form the infrastructure for AI factory data centers. Despite generating more quarterly revenue than Cisco's entire networking business, the segment receives far less attention than Nvidia's dominant chip or legacy gaming businesses.