NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Annual global Wi-Fi infrastructure shipments supporting Wi-Fi 8 are forecast to reach 82.8 million units by 2030, accounting for 18.5% of total shipments, as demand for ultra-high reliability and AI-driven networking capabilities accelerates adoption of the next-generation wireless standard, according to global technology advisory firm ABI Research.
While Wi-Fi 7 was certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance just over two years ago and remains early in its deployment cycle, the industry is already advancing rapidly toward Wi-Fi 8. The latter half of last year saw the introduction of Wi-Fi 8 chipset portfolios from Broadcom and MediaTek, followed in 1Q 2026 by the unveiling of multiple early Wi-Fi 8 access point (AP) prototypes.
“Wi-Fi 8 represents a fundamental shift in the core value proposition of Wi-Fi standards,” said Andrew Spivey, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “Whereas previous generations emphasized ever-higher throughput, Wi-Fi 8 has been engineered to deliver ultra-high reliability, addressing growing requirements for deterministic performance across consumer, enterprise, and industrial environments.”
This reliability will be enabled through a range of new features such as Multi-AP Coordination (MAPC), which allows multiple access points to coordinate simultaneously to optimize channel selection and intelligently balance network load. Demand for these advanced capabilities is expected to drive rapid adoption of the standard once commercial deployments begin.
Industry momentum around Wi-Fi 8 is already building, with Wi-Fi customer-premises equipment (CPE) vendors such as TP-Link and Huawei promoting early work on the standard. However, the technology still faces challenges, particularly around access to 6 GHz spectrum. While Wi-Fi 8 was designed with full 6 GHz availability in mind, many markets continue to face limited or no access to the band, creating divergence between fully featured deployments and pared-back implementations.
Communicating the value of ultra-high reliability also presents a hurdle, as reliability gains are less visible to consumers than speed increases. As a result, many vendors are expected to position Wi-Fi 8 as an enabler of AI-driven networking, emphasizing its role in supporting AI workloads and intelligent network operation rather than raw throughput gains.
“Fierce competition within the Wi-Fi market is accelerating generation cycles as vendors race to demonstrate innovation leadership,” Spivey concluded. “This dynamic increases R&D costs and narrows the window for achieving strong returns on investment from previous generations.”
These findings are from ABI Research’s Residential, Enterprise, and Industrial WLAN Markets and Technologies Market Data report, part of the company’s Wi-Fi & WLAN Technologies & Markets research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, market data reports present in-depth analysis of key market trends and factors for a specific technology.
About ABI Research
ABI Research is a global technology intelligence firm uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology solution providers and end-market companies. We serve as the bridge that seamlessly connects these two segments by providing exclusive research and expert guidance to drive successful technology implementations and deliver strategies proven to attract and retain customers.
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