Credo Technology outpaces Broadcom in AI networking growth

Credo Technology Group (NASDAQ: CRDO) just closed a fiscal year that most chip companies only see in investor-day slide decks. Revenue for fiscal 2026, which ended in May 2026, reached $1.3 billion, up 206% from the prior year.

Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) is still the heavyweight in AI networking. On a percentage basis, though, the specialist has been running laps around the giant’s overall business.

The numbers behind the sprint

The revenue figure was not a one-quarter fluke. Credo posted triple-digit growth rates across several consecutive quarters.

Profits grew even faster. Non-GAAP earnings per share jumped 392% to $3.46 for the fiscal year.

The engine behind all of this is a product category most people never think about: the cables and chips that connect AI hardware together. Credo’s flagship is the active electrical cable, or AEC. Think of it as a copper cable with built-in electronics that keep the signal clean as data races between servers.

Credo sells these under its HiWire brand. The company pitches them on reliability and power efficiency, two features that matter a great deal in AI training clusters.

Credo’s customer list is concentrated among the biggest buyers in tech. Four hyperscalers, the massive cloud operators that build data centers by the warehouse-full, each accounted for more than 10% of revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026.

Wall Street has noticed. Credo’s stock was up approximately 74% year-to-date as of mid-June 2026, ahead of both Nvidia and Broadcom over that stretch.

David, Goliath, and a fair fight on percentages

The comparison with Broadcom needs some nuance. Broadcom’s AI semiconductor business is growing fast too.

In one reported quarter, its AI chip revenue climbed 221% year-over-year to approximately $16.7 billion. That growth rate actually tops Credo’s annual figure. The dollar amount from a single quarter also dwarfs everything Credo booked across its entire fiscal year.

Broadcom is a sprawling company. It sells custom AI accelerators and networking chips alongside a broad lineup of other products. The fast-growing AI segment gets blended with businesses that grow at a more ordinary pace, which pulls the company-wide growth rate down.

Credo has no such ballast. Nearly everything it sells feeds directly into AI data-center connectivity, so the AI boom shows up almost undiluted in its results.

From copper to light

Credo is not betting the company on copper alone. Its roadmap now leans heavily into optics, which carry data as light rather than electrical signals.

The company has been building out optical digital signal processors, the chips that clean up and decode data moving through fiber. It is also working on silicon photonics, which puts optical components directly onto silicon chips. A product line called 1.6T ZeroFlap optics rounds out the push.

As of November 2026, Credo was still focused on ramping that optical portfolio and on industry standards work.

What this means for investors and the AI build-out

Management has guided for more than 80% revenue growth in fiscal 2027. That outlook is supported by anticipated optical revenue of more than $600 million.

Customer concentration is the other obvious pressure point. Having four hyperscalers each above the 10% mark shows that the biggest buyers trust Credo’s gear.

For Broadcom holders, the read-through is less dramatic. The company’s AI chip revenue is growing at a pace comparable to Credo’s, just on a vastly larger base and inside a more diversified business.