With demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and advanced memory exploding, global information technology (IT) expenditure this year is expected to far exceed earlier estimates. In particular, the data center systems field is forecast to lead overall market growth, posting a growth rate above 50%.
According to market research firm Gartner on the 23rd, global IT expenditure in 2026 is estimated to reach $6.3165 trillion, up 13.5% from last year.
This is an upward revision from the outlook released in Feb., reflecting strong growth across AI infrastructure as well as software (SW) and cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
John-David Lovelock, vice president analyst at Gartner, said, "As AI workloads expand, investment in data centers is rising quickly, which is leading to increased demand for high-performance computing."
By field, data center systems expenditure is projected to top $788 billion with a 55.8% growth rate, drawing the steepest upward curve.
Generative AI is also driving notable growth in the SW market. In particular, the Generative AI model development institutional sector is expected to more than double this year from a year earlier.
The IT services institutional sector is projected to exceed $1.87 trillion, becoming the largest by expenditure on the back of growth in application development, managed services, and IaaS.
Device expenditure is expected to reach $856 billion this year, but its growth rate is forecast to stay at 8.2%. As memory prices rise and average selling prices increase, replacement demand for low-margin product lines is being constrained.
Lovelock said, "With strong demand colliding with supply constraints, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) prices are soaring to record highs, making the memory institutional sector a highly profitable market for semiconductor companies."
He added, "This trend shows a widening gap within the IT market," noting, "While AI infrastructure and Generative AI SW have posted sharp growth, the device market is under expense pressure."