Meet Aria: The startup taking on networking giants to emulate Arista

Aria Networks, the networking startup founded by former Apstra CEO Mansour Karam, is expanding into Europe, the Middle East and Africa after raising $125 million in spring 2025, pitching a co-designed software-hardware stack for AI data centers. Aria's offering combines AI-class switches built on Broadcom's Tomahawk 5 and 6 silicon (800G, with a 1.6T version due later this year), a modified SONiC operating system, and optimization software that collects microsecond-resolution telemetry — 160-plus parameters from optical transceivers and NICs — which Karam said standard SONiC cannot absorb without added containers. The startup now has more than 80 employees, including alumni of Juniper, Cisco and Dell, and has moved to a larger Sunnyvale, California facility to accommodate testing power; Karam argues networking is only 10% to 20% of AI infrastructure spending but directly affects the performance and tokenomics of the entire AI factory.

The AI buildout represents arguably the biggest opportunity for disruption in the world of networking than ever before. No one knows this better than Mansour Karam. Having led Apstra to a multimillion-dollar acquisition by Juniper Networks https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/juniper-networks-acquires-apstra-to-drive-deeper-automation/ , he’s now back with a new venture aimed at capturing that chance while taking on the big boys. Having raised $125 million https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/apstra-founders-aria-networks-raises-125m-with-ethernet-based-token-efficiency-promise/ in the spring, Karam’s new Aria Networks is now expanding into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa EMEA , and wants its offerings to do the talking. Aria aren’t just offering a switch line wrapped around third-party hardware and calling it a day; they’re taking an end-to-end approach with what Karam described as a co-designed software-hardware solution encompassing a networking operating system, optimization software, and “AI-class” switches. “We're just getting started,” Karam told SDxCentral at a showcase to the side of the recent GTC event in Berlin. The startup is now north of 80 people, boasting alums from rivals they’re trying to take on, including Juniper, Cisco, and Dell Technologies. But they’re also growing to the extent that they moved to a larger location in Sunnyvale, California, to accommodate the power needed to test their solutions. But the upstart’s sights on continental growth come as it believes AI data centers need a networking vendor designed specifically for AI workloads. Karam contends that networking represents just 10% to 20% of AI infrastructure spending, and yet its performance directly affects the entire AI factory and its tokenomics. By focusing solely on improving network performance, Aria is gunning for an outsized payoff with solutions specifically targeting demands that traditional networking solutions like those offered at Karam’s former employers simply weren’t built for. “When we needed to build networking equipment for the enterprise, we called it enterprise class. AI needs something different. It needs a performant network where you really prioritize for the highest performance. You prioritize for the highest levels of signal integrity to support the largest set of connectivity options, and so AI-class hardware, AI-class switches, are optimized for the AI use case," Karam said. The budding vendor joins the growing ranks of switch designers tapping Broadcom’s Tomahawk switch silicon, with 800 GB/s 800G options atop Tomahawk 5 and 6 and a 1.6 Tb/s 1.6T iteration set to drop later this year. But Aria’s differentiator on display in Berlin was its software prowess. The vendor is tapping the software for open networking in the cloud SONiC specification as its operating system, but almost with a twist, adding its own specially designed capabilities it feels aren’t currently as mature in the open standard. Karam outlined to SDxCentral that its increased emphasis on software compared to rival players comes from a desire to be “better than the best switch operating system out there.” Aria’s unique software approach sits on top of its switches, collecting telemetry from across entire environments in order to optimize AI factory performance. “If you try and point our microsecond telemetry stream to standard SONiC, it'll just fall apart,” the Aria founder explained. “We had to make modifications to allow it to absorb the telemetry that we have by adding some containers that process the telemetry specifically.” “We're collecting telemetry from the switches at the microsecond resolution, which is unique among OEMs," Karam continued. "There are a couple of hyperscalers that do it, but for the general market, we are unique in doing that, and we're also collecting telemetry from the cables, from the optics. We collect 160-plus parameters just from optical transceivers, from the NICs network interface cards , from the hosts, because at the end, what's really critical is to have that observability. But you can't just collect this much telemetry and just hand it to the user.” That emphasis translated into action in the form of patches. Early testers like Gatti Services found API problems during tests of Aria switches; problems were fixed overnight, and new features appeared quickly. Gatti engineers tested Aria’s switches and software for three weeks and were honest in their broadly positive view: rack installation, cabling, initial configuration, and getting switches and management servers running was simple enough that it could be done in hours rather than a couple of days; and zero-touch provisioning allowed for live topology analysis, making missing links, wrong cabling, and configuration drift easier to spot. Gatti technical lead Falk Stern praised the Aria software side, saying everything was set up “without touching or installing management software or Arista CloudVision or whatever product we have for management; it always feels like tacked on, and this is just integrated and basically comes as one package.” But something you don’t tend to hear from wider networking players is when engineers have something positive to say about support experiences. The Gatti team praised Aria’s engineers’ responsiveness despite being on the other side of the globe. Of course, Aria is only just entering the EMEA market, so forward-deployed engineers were in California, but Karam was keen to stress the importance of having them as complementary as its software to ensure users can get its solutions up and running to “deliver the revenue as quickly as possible.” What next for networking’s newest player? Based on the feedback in Berlin, Aria has already won over the folks at Gatti. As for what’s next, Karam's dream is to be better than the best switch operating system out there, and to achieve that, they’re fully focused on growing. Karam told SDxCentral that Aria is working on adding capabilities like support for multitenancy deployments and has its sights firmly set on disruption: “As long as you’re not buying everything from Nvidia, we compete.” Of course, Karam sold his last networking company to Juniper Networks. As to whether lightning strikes twice and if Aria’s future lies in being acquired, the founder stood firm, stating: “That's not what we're thinking about; it's not in the cards for us right now.” “The way we raise money, the investors we have, the whole approach we're taking; this is a $300 billion market size. There is a massive opportunity here and that should allow us to remain independent,” Karam outlined. “The way I think about this is that for a lot of us, this is when I say it's our retirement plan. It means that that's what we're choosing to do for retirement; it's not like we are somehow looking to exit in some way or another.” The Aria founder pointed to another player that’s gone to the moon in the past year or two off the back of the AI boom. “If you look at Arista, they went from zero to $4 billion in valuation in 10 years, and then they went from core to 200-plus in the next 10 years. You have to be patient, and there is massive opportunity. You just have to execute. You shouldn't get ahead of yourself. And I think that we should just keep our heads down and execute in this exciting market,” Karam said.