Global IT spending is expected to climb to $6.31 trillion in 2026 – an increase of 13.5 percent compared to 2025. This is the conclusion reached by Gartner analysts in their latest market forecast, thereby revising their previous forecast upwards again.
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“The current forecast clearly shows how strong the dynamics around AI infrastructures and modern storage solutions now are,” comments Gartner analyst John-David Lovelock on market events. With the growing number of AI workloads, investments in data centers also increased rapidly. This in turn stimulates demand for high-performance computers. At the same time, strong demand and delivery bottlenecks drove prices for high-bandwidth storage to record levels.
This means that the AI infrastructure business is becoming the most attractive growth segment. In particular, the investments of hyperscalers and AI-centered software segments are likely to perform significantly better than traditional product categories.
Data centers as growth drivers
According to the forecast, spending on data center systems will increase by 55.8 percent to $788 billion in 2026. For comparison: at the beginning of February, the expected growth spurt was more than twenty percentage points lower. Gartner has also revised the growth rates of the other sub-markets upwards – albeit to a much more modest extent. Software spending is expected to increase by 15.1 instead of 14.7 percent, and that for IT services by 9.0 instead of 8.7 percent.
Gartner now estimates the growth in PCs, smartphones & Co. to be 8.2 percent, a good two percentage points higher than in February. On the one hand, the higher storage costs in this segment are driving up average prices and market volume. On the other hand, they are dampening growth in the low-priced device segment as customers delay new purchases.
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