Gartner just revised its global IT spending projection for 2026 – here’s why

Gartner has revised its IT spending forecast upwards due to an expected surge in AI-related infrastructure investment.

Global IT spending will hit $6.37 trillion this year, up 14.2% from last year, according to the analyst firm.

This marks a steep increase on an original forecast to reflect "increased confidence in overall market expansion" — but only in areas directly benefiting from AI adoption.

Traditional segments are predicted to post positive growth, but they will be "comparatively modest".

According to Gartner's revised prediction, spending on data centers is set to increase by 62.5% to $822 billion this year, nearly catching up with global devices spending.

That follows 51.6% growth last year, the analyst firm noted. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) builds on 25% growth in 2025, with a predicted 29.3% bump to $287 billion this year.

"Data center systems and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are the top growth segments, reflecting accelerating investment in AI infrastructure, cloud platforms, and intelligent applications," said John-David Lovelock, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.

"Building the compute capacity required for AI is the largest infrastructure project ever attempted by humanity,” he added.

“Driven by the expansion of AI workloads and demand for high-performance computing, hyperscalers and enterprises are rapidly scaling next-generation data center capacity."

Big tech providers are spending record sums on infrastructure, with a particular focus on new data centers optimized for AI.

Last week, Google-owner Alphabet again increased its capital expenditure plans for the year, from $180bn to $190bn to a new prediction of $195bn to $205bn — that follows a $5bn increase in the last quarter.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), meanwhile, plans to spend $200bn in capex this year with Meta setting aside $145bn.

Such spending has sparked concerns from investors, despite such companies also posting massive revenue from the cloud as hyperscalers. c

Constrained supply

Growth isn't good news for everyone, however, as massive AI infrastructure projects mean constrained supply for other areas of tech — leading to rising costs.

While software, services, and communications are posting significantly slower growth than AI-adjacent sectors, they remain the biggest segments for the sector.

Software is projected to record growth of 15.5%, a touch higher than last year, while services climbs slightly to 5.3%, and communications services nudges up only slightly to 4.4% this year.

Device growth is flat at 9.8% — not a surprise given the rising cost of smartphones and laptops, driven by an AI-fueled memory shortage.

"Despite the strong growth in spending, this is not a rising tide lifts all boats market trend," said Lovelock. "Technology budgets are being strained by inflation, supply shortages, rising hardware and memory costs, AI funding initiatives and shifting priorities."

Put simply, AI might be driving increased investment in related infrastructure and software — but the infrastructure build-out is causing shortages that are making devices more expensive by reducing supply.

"IT spending growth is being fuelled by rising investments in AI infrastructure and software. Organizations are spending more on AI optimized servers, cloud services, and AI-ready software as they expand their AI efforts, while hardware markets continue to adjust to semiconductor and memory supply constraints," added Lovelock.

"The fastest growth is expected in AI-related infrastructure, cloud services, and software, reflecting the strong focus on building and scaling AI capabilities across the enterprise."

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