With AI Investment Accelerating Across the Technology Stack, IT Spending Will Cross the $7 Trillion Mark for the First Time
Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $7.35 trillion in 2027, up 15% from 2026, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.Gartner analysts are discussing the trends that are impacting the IT market during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, taking place here through Thursday.
“Collectively, the market forces are reinforcing spend around AI infrastructure, AI-enabled cloud platforms and advanced software ecosystems, as these are the most attractive opportunities in global IT spending,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “Increasingly, the growth of the digital economy is being determined not only by software adoption, but also by the ability to finance, build and monetize AI infrastructure at an unprecedented scale.”
The next $1 trillion dollars in IT spending growth is being shaped by two interconnected AI domains: AI infrastructure and AI software. Spending on AI-optimized servers, AI-optimized infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and AI software platforms continues to strengthen as organizations seek to industrialize AI deployment. At the same time, hardware markets are experiencing growing pressure from memory-related inflation (see Table 1).
Table 1. Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Billions of U.S. Dollars)
Gartner’s IT spending forecast methodology relies heavily on rigorous analysis of the sales by over a thousand vendors across the entire range of IT products and services. Gartner uses primary research techniques, complemented by secondary research sources, to build a comprehensive database of market size data on which to base its forecast.
