Gartner: Worldwide IT Spending to Grow More Than 14% This Year

Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $6.37 trillion in 2026, up 14.2% from 2025, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.

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

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

In this latest update, total IT spending has been revised upward with stronger growth projections, reflecting increased confidence in overall market expansion. The revision places greater emphasis on AI-related spending, with incremental growth increasingly concentrated in segments directly benefiting from AI adoption, while traditional segments show comparatively modest changes.

“IT spending growth is being fueled 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,” said 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.”

Gartner uses primary research techniques, complemented by secondary research sources, to build a market size database on which to base its forecast.

Channel Impact^®
These findings underscore that AI infrastructure, AI-enabled cloud platforms and advanced software ecosystems will remain the most attractive segments for capitalizing on the strong expansion in global IT spending.