Global IT spending is forecast to climb 14.2 per cent in 2026 to $6.37 trillion, according to Gartner. The rise is driven by heavy investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure by enterprises and hyperscale cloud providers. Data centre systems will be the fastest-growing segment, jumping 62.5 per cent to $822 billion. Infrastructure as a service, or IaaS, is expected to grow 29.3 per cent to $287 billion. Software spending is set to rise 15.5 per cent to $1.47 trillion. Devices will grow 9.8 per cent to $868 billion, while IT services expand 5.3 per cent to $1.57 trillion and communications services 4.4 per cent to $1.35 trillion. John-David Lovelock of Gartner called the build-out of AI compute capacity the largest infrastructure project ever attempted by humanity. He also warned that the benefits will not be shared equally. Budgets face pressure from inflation, supply shortages and higher hardware and memory costs.
Global IT spending is forecast to climb 14.2 per cent in 2026 to $6.37 trillion, according to Gartner. The rise is driven by heavy investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure by enterprises and hyperscale cloud providers. Data centre systems will be the fastest-growing segment, jumping 62.5 per cent to $822 billion. Infrastructure as a service, or IaaS, is expected to grow 29.3 per cent to $287 billion. Software spending is set to rise 15.5 per cent to $1.47 trillion. Devices will grow 9.8 per cent to $868 billion, while IT services expand 5.3 per cent to $1.57 trillion and communications services 4.4 per cent to $1.35 trillion. John-David Lovelock of Gartner called the build-out of AI compute capacity the largest infrastructure project ever attempted by humanity. He also warned that the benefits will not be shared equally. Budgets face pressure from inflation, supply shortages and higher hardware and memory costs.