Ciena, Nokia, and Cisco Named Leaders in ABI Research’s Open Line Systems for Data Center Interconnect Scale-Across Ranking

Global technology intelligence firm ABI Research has named Ciena, Nokia, and Cisco as the leaders in its Open Line Systems for Data Center Interconnect Scale-Across ranking, reflecting the growing importance of optical interconnect infrastructure as hyperscalers and neoclouds distribute AI workloads across campuses, cities, and regions. The ranking highlights how vendor differentiation is increasingly tied to a mix of optical innovation, implementation scale, and support for distributed AI infrastructure.

“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.”

ABI Research identified Ciena as the overall leader, driven by its vertically integrated optical portfolio and innovations such as its Reconfigurable Line System and Hyper-Rail architecture. Nokia stands out for its compact modular platform, vertical integration, and multi-rail roadmap, while Cisco’s high ranking reflects its major coherent pluggable footprint, strong hyperscaler traction, and growing scale-across optical strategy. Among the mainstream vendors, Adtran stands at the head of the group, recognized for its strong position in open and disaggregated optical networking, in-house amplifier expertise, zero-touch provisioning, and orchestration capabilities.

The ranking underscores how the scale-across market is expanding as energy shortages and grid constraints push operators to link adjacent and regionally distributed data centers with massive volumes of optical connections. ABI Research also found that hardware disaggregation is now mainstream, shifting competitive differentiation toward amplification density, hut optimization, and AI-driven orchestration software, while incumbent heavyweights continue to lead due to their scale, integration depth, and supply chain reach.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Open Line Systems for Data Center Interconnect Scale-Across competitive ranking report, part of the company’s Data Centers research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights.