Gartner forecasts worldwide IT spending will reach $6.15 trillion in 2026, reflecting 10.8% growth from 2025 levels driven primarily by accelerated AI infrastructure investments from hyperscale cloud providers. Data center systems spending surges 31.7% to $653.4 billion while server markets accelerate 36.9% year-over-year to support AI-optimised workloads despite concerns over potential AI investment bubbles. GenAI model spending maintains robust 80.8% growth with software markets expanding 14.7% to exceed $1.4 trillion overall.
Data Center Capex Explodes Amid AI Server Demand
Total data center spending climbs from nearly $500 billion in 2025 to surpass $650 billion in 2026, propelled by hyperscale providers aggressively investing in servers engineered specifically for AI processing requirements. Server spending growth trajectory accelerates dramatically as organisations prioritise infrastructure capable of handling escalating computational demands associated with large-scale model training and inference operations at enterprise scale.
Gartner analysts note continued strong demand signals across AI-related hardware and software categories underscoring sustained investment commitment despite macroeconomic headwinds.​
Software Growth Sustained Despite Modest Forecast Revision
Software spending projections adjusted slightly downward to 14.7% growth for both application and infrastructure software segments, yet total markets remain positioned above $1.4 trillion threshold reflecting resilient demand fundamentals. GenAI models specifically sustain unchanged 80.8% growth trajectory increasing market share by 1.8 percentage points within broader software landscape. Device spending growth moderates to 6.1% reaching $836 billion constrained by rising memory prices elevating average selling costs while suppressing low-margin replacement cycles across mobile phones, PCs and tablets.​
Services and Methodology Underpin Forecast Accuracy
IT services project steady 8.7% growth to $1.87 trillion while communications services advance 4.7% to $1.37 trillion completing diversified IT spending expansion across mature categories. Gartner’s proprietary forecast methodology incorporates rigorous analysis of sales data from over one thousand vendors spanning complete IT product and services portfolios supported by primary research techniques and comprehensive secondary market intelligence sources.
Quarterly IT spending databooks deliver granular visibility across hardware, software, services and telecommunications enabling clients to navigate market opportunities and challenges effectively.​
