IT Spending Statistics 2026

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.

Overall IT 6,391 14.5 7,352 15.0

Data Center Systems 879 73.8 1,366 55.5

Services 1,557 4.4 1,633 4.9

Over the past 12 months, demand from data center systems has driven memory prices to more than double, with cost increases cascading throughout storage, server, networking, PC and device supply chains.

Global spending on information and communications technology (ICT) is forecast to reach $4 trillion in 2026 and surpass $6 trillion by 2029, according to the latest update of the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide ICT Spending Guide Enterprise and SMB by Industry.

Excluding the consumer segment, the ICT market is projected to grow 10% in 2026, driven by rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms, which will grow over 70% by the end of the year.

The United States will lead global ICT spending in 2026, reaching $2 trillion, driven by its large enterprise base and rapid adoption of cloud and AI technologies.

Software 1,464 15.2 1,679 14.6

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 292 31.3 367 25.7

Software emerges as the largest technology group in 2026, absorbing more than 33% of global ICT spending.

Global spending on public cloud services is forecast to surpass $1 trillion in 2026—growing over 21%—and is expected to double by 2029, according to the latest update of International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Software and Public Cloud Services Spending Guide.

Spending will reach $647 billion in 2026, supported by large-scale enterprise migrations, hyperscaler AI infrastructure investment, and strong demand from regulated industries.

Global security spending is projected to reach $308 billion in 2026 and $430 billion by 2029, according to the latest forecast from the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Security Spending Guide.

Worldwide spending on AI is forecast to total $2.7 trillion in 2026, a 49.5% increase year-over-year, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

AI Infrastructure 981,920 1,484,397 1,977,685

AI Software 288,168 461,637 656,353

IDC projects AI infrastructure spending will reach $497 billion in 2026, representing approximately 56% year-over-year growth

According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly AI Infrastructure Tracker, spending reached $89.7 billion in Q1 2026, up 33% year-over-year but flat sequentially as growth normalizes off a larger base.

According to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide AI and Generative AI Spending Guide, European spending on artificial intelligence will reach $290 billion in 2029, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.7% over the 2025–2029 forecast period.

Second-quarter revenue was $89.0 billion, up 18% from the previous quarter and up 117% from a year ago.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported revenue for the second quarter ended July 26, 2026, of $96.2 billion, up 18% from the previous quarter and up 106% from a year ago.

Capital expenditures, which primarily reflected investments in technical infrastructure, were $51.4 billion for the three months ended September 30, 2026.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2025 and 2026, we spent $63.6 billion and $132.0 billion on capital expenditures, respectively.

As of December 31, 2025 and September 30, 2026, approximately 60 % of technical infrastructure assets were comprised of servers and network equipment.

Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $34.91 billion.

We anticipate 2026 capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, to be in the range of $135-145 billion, narrowed from our prior outlook of $130-145 billion.

We continue to expect 2026 cash capital expenditures to be approximately $220 billion.

Free cash flow decreased to an outflow of $42.4 billion for the trailing twelve months, driven primarily by a year-over-year increase of $94.8 billion in purchases of property and equipment, net of proceeds from sales and incentives.

AWS segment sales increased 39% year-over-year to $46.0 billion.

Cash used in investing increased $7.4 billion to $42.0 billion for the three months ended September 30, 2026, primarily due to a $20.0 billion increase in additions to property and equipment

As of September 30, 2026, we had additional leases, primarily for datacenters, that had not yet commenced of $ 364.6 billion, with some arrangements subject to certain contractual conditions being met.

Azure revenue increased 48%

Driven by data centre investments, the capital expenditure of five large technology companies surged to more than $400 billion in 2025 and is set to increase by a further 75% in 2026.

Electricity demand from data centres soared by 17% in 2025, and that of AI-focused data centres climbed even faster – well outpacing growth in global electricity demand of 3%.

In 2024, countries in the top quartile invested an average of 4.7% of GDP in ICT, compared with 1.4% in the bottom quartile (Figure 2).

Between 2010 and 2024, ICT investment rose from 3.1% to 4.0% of GDP in the United States but remained broadly stable at around 1.5% in Germany.

Switzerland recorded the highest ICT investment rate, at 6.5% of GDP, followed by Sweden, Japan and Czechia at 5.5%, 5.3% and 4.7%, respectively.

At the other end of the distribution, Poland remained below 1% of GDP, while Bulgaria and Mexico each recorded 1.3%.

Investment in intangible assets was £244.7 billion in 2023, compared with £230.1 billion in 2022; this is £85.3 billion higher than investment in tangible assets, such as machinery and buildings, in the latest period.

The largest capitalised intangible asset in 2023 was software (purchased and own-account), totaling £57.2 billion of investment.

Within capitalised intangible assets, except for artistic originals, all asset types saw annual increases in investment in 2023, including a £7.1 billion increase in own-account software (19.9%).

UK business investment increased by 1.8% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2026, revised up from a 1.7% increase in the provisional estimate.

52.74% of EU enterprises used paid cloud computing services in 2025, mostly for e-mail, office software and storage of files.

Compared with 2023, the share of enterprises using paid cloud computing services in the EU increased by 7.42 percentage points in 2025.

The share of enterprises using paid cloud computing services was particularly high among large enterprises where 84.67% reported purchasing such services in 2025, an increase of 6.9 pp compared with 2023.

Among small businesses, the share of enterprises using paid cloud computing services increased in the same time period by 7.48 pp to 49.3%

While managing cloud spend remains a top challenge (85%), organizations are applying more mature FinOps practices, with 63% having established FinOps teams and 64% reporting value delivered to business units.

Alongside this shift, the report shows cloud-based AI workloads are surging, causing an increase in wasted cloud spend (29%) for the first time in five years.

AI has quickly moved from experimentation to operation, with 81% of respondents stating they are using generative AI, compared to 72% last year and 47% in 2024.

it’s not surprising that 47% of large enterprises are establishing dedicated AI governance teams or leaders.