SONiC Foundation Accelerates Ecosystem Growth and Global Adoption as the Leading Open Source NOS Optimized for Enterprise AI Workloads

• New deployment case studies and on-site activities at the OCP Global Summit showcase SONiC powering AI supercomputers, telecom networks, and national-scale infrastructure.

• Fully realizing the value of SONiC membership, Nexthop AI has advanced to Premier level, deepening contributions and strengthening SONiC’s open networking ecosystem.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — OCP Global Summit — October 13, 2025 — The Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) Foundation, an open source network operating system (NOS) hosted under the Linux Foundation, today announced key milestones reinforcing SONiC’s role as the leading open source NOS optimized for AI workloads. These include the advancement of Nexthop AI to Premier membership, four new deployment case studies, and SONiC’s expanded presence at the OCP Global Summit 2025, highlighting SONiC’s evolution from a disruptive innovation to a trusted open networking standard powering AI-scale infrastructure worldwide.

"SONiC’s momentum reflects more than growth; it signals a shift in how the industry views open source NOS,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT at the Linux Foundation. "Each new member milestone, case study, or community event underscores SONiC’s evolution from a disruptive idea to a global standard in open networking. By strengthening the ecosystem, we’re lowering barriers to adoption and enabling organizations to confidently scale mission-critical infrastructure on open source.”

Nexthop AI Advances to Premier Membership

A long-time contributor to the SONiC ecosystem, Nexthop AI has advanced from General to Premier membership, joining the SONiC Governing Board. The company has contributed enhancements to platform management code, new product support, and leadership across SONiC community workshops and hackathons.

“We are pleased to become a Premier member and join the Governing Board,” said Ryan Torres, VP of Software at Nexthop AI. “We look forward to advancing SONiC into a high quality and efficient stack for Scale Out & Scale Up networking.”

SONiC Powers Real-World Infrastructure Across Industries

SONiC’s production deployments continue to expand globally across AI, telecom, and financial sectors. The Foundation today published four new case studies showcasing SONiC’s versatility and impact: in high performance super computing, telecom, retail enterprise environment. 

• SAKURA internet deployed SAKURAONE, an 800-GPU cloud infrastructure powered by SONiC, earning the 49th spot in the global TOP500 supercomputer ranking.
• MITSUI KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY CO., LTD. used SONiC to build the AI infrastructure behind the Tokyo-1 supercomputer, achieving significant cost savings and enhanced lifecycle control.
• Rakuten A large telecom provider validated SONiC at scale across multi-vendor platforms, realizing over 50% cost savings compared to proprietary solutions.
• A national retail payments operator in India modernized its infrastructure with SONiC, enabling hundreds of millions of secure daily transactions while reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) by 40%.

Showcasing SONiC at OCP Global Summit 2025

SONiC’s momentum will be on full display at the OCP Global Summit 2025 in San Jose, Calif., October 13–17. Attendees can explore SONiC’s innovation through multiple engagement opportunities:

• SONiC Workshop (Co-Located Event): Technical deep dives and community updates. No separate registration required — simply register through the OCP Global Summit. View the workshop agenda. 
• Live Demos: Experience SONiC in action on the show floor, with live demos, AI and cloud-scale use cases, multi-vendor collaboration, and swag giveaways. View SONiC booth demo agenda. 
• Extended SONiC Workshop Hosted by Google: Taking place during the same week at the Google Campus, this event will bring together maintainers, contributors, and technical leaders for deeper collaboration through working group meetings, technical deep dives, and TSC discussions on SONiC’s next-phase innovations and roadmap priorities. View the event agenda.

For more details on SONiC’s case studies and activities at OCP Global Summit—or to learn more about membership opportunities—visit sonicfoundation.dev.

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Media Contact:

Sunny Cai

scai@linuxfoundation.org

The Linux Foundation