A Chronological Analysis of the Evolution of SmartNICs
Olasupo Ajayi, Ryan Grant
TL;DR
This paper conducts a systematic 15-year (2010–2024) chronology of SmartNICs, using 370 IEEE Xplore articles to map how device types (FPGA-NICs, DPUs, SmartNICs), manufacturers (AMD, Nvidia, Netronome, Intel), and use cases have evolved. It finds a dramatic post-2020 shift toward DPUs and SmartNICs driven by industry consolidation and broader offloading capabilities, with security and network processing as dominant domains and AI/ML offloading growing but still niche. The study provides a data-driven view of SNIC trajectories, highlighting cross-domain applicability and the need to expand data sources beyond IEEE Xplore. It offers practical insights for researchers and practitioners planning SNIC deployments and future standardization efforts.
Abstract
Network Interface Cards (NICs) are one of the key enablers of the modern Internet. They serve as gateways for connecting computing devices to networks for the exchange of data with other devices. Recently, the pervasive nature of Internet-enabled devices coupled with the growing demands for faster network access have necessitated the enhancement of NICs to Smart NICs (SNICs), capable of processing enormous volumes of data at near real-time speed. However, despite their popularity, the exact use and applicability of SNICs remains an ongoing debate. These debates are exacerbated by the incorporation of accelerators into SNIC, allowing them to relieve their host's CPUs of various tasks. In this work, we carry out a chronological analysis of SNICs, using 370 articles published in the past 15 years, from 2010 to 2024, to gain some insight into SNICs; and shed some light on their evolution, manufacturers, use cases, and application domains.