Astera Labs Broadens Scorpio X-Series Smart Fabric Switch Roadmap to Address Expanding Scale-Up Market Opportunities

Astera Labs, Inc. announced an expanded portfolio roadmap that will feature new capabilities, including support for increased radix, platform-specific protocols, in-network computing, Hypercast technology, and optical connectivity. Close collaboration with hyperscale customers and initial platform deployments have revealed new opportunities for the merchant scale-up switching market which is projected to reach $20 billion by 2030. Building upon Scorpio X-Series’ initial momentum, the company is accelerating investment in the Scorpio X-Series roadmap to further capitalize on this high-growth market opportunity.

The shift toward next-gen AI workloads is fundamentally changing scale-up connectivity requirements. Single clusters are now scaling to hundreds of thousands of AI accelerators that support expanding context windows and multi-turn agentic workflows, with each hyperscaler approaching these challenges with unique architectural approaches optimized for their specific workload profiles. These diverse requirements demand varied connectivity solutions – from different radix configurations to multiple platform-specific protocols, optical connectivity enablement, and advanced traffic management capabilities. Hyperscalers are seeking flexible, purpose-built connectivity solutions optimized for their unique architectural approaches and application needs.

“As hyperscalers scale to larger cluster sizes and deploy more complex AI workloads, they need flexible connectivity portfolios that can address varied architectural approaches – not one-size-fits-all solutions,” said Thad Omura, CBO, Astera Labs. “The market opportunity is substantially larger than we initially anticipated, encompassing multiple device configurations, connectivity modalities, and protocol requirements. We’re accelerating our development efforts across the Scorpio X-Series to serve this expanded opportunity and deliver the purpose-built solutions the market demands.”

To address this expanded market opportunity, the company is rapidly scaling the Scorpio X-Series portfolio in close collaboration with hyperscalers, AI platform providers, and neo-cloud leaders.

The broadened roadmap will encompass 5 feature areas:

• Increased radix support: Multiple device configurations across the Scorpio X-Series family will support varied cluster sizes – from compact deployments to large-scale configurations – enabling hyperscalers to optimize fabric topology for their specific workload requirements
• Hyperscaler platform-specific protocols: Scorpio X-Series will support customized interconnect protocols used by hyperscalers to optimize workloads and infrastructure, eliminating integration barriers and enabling seamless deployment into hybrid AI infrastructure architectures
• In-network computing: Scorpio X-Series will feature in-network compute that performs operations directly in the fabric switch, offloading data-intensive work from GPUs to accelerate AI workloads and enable more efficient scaling
• Hypercast technology: Astera Labs’ enhancement to standard data distribution protocols, purpose-built for AI workloads, will significantly reduce GPU-to-GPU communication overhead and improve overall GPU utilization
• Optical Connectivity: Scorpio X-Series will incorporate photonic switch-to-accelerator links that will enable multi-rack deployments, allowing domains to scale to 1,000s of GPUs

^[1] Market size estimate based on Astera Labs’ internal analysis using 3rd-party research.