According to data from Synergy Research Group, the global spending on data centre hardware and software in 2024 will reach an all-time high and grow by 34% from 2023.
GenAI boosted growth
Data reveals a 48% jump in spending on public cloud infrastructure, accounting for more than half (55%) of the total market. For 15 years, public cloud services' growth and constraining spend on enterprises’ own data centres have significantly increased investment in cloud infrastructure.
However, in 2024, generative AI (GenAI) boosted spending, with cloud providers and enterprises purchasing GPUs to support their genAI workloads.
“GPUs and generative AI systems lit a fire under the market in 2024, resulting in record growth rates for the industry. While the ongoing success of public cloud has been the main driving force behind data centre investments for well over a decade now, no-one imagined a 2024 market for data centre gear reaching over $280 billion,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group.
Based on Synergy’s forecast for Q4 and data for the first three-quarters of 2024, total data centre equipment revenues will reach $282 billion in 2024, with public cloud infrastructure accounting for $156 billion.
“It is good to see the enterprise side of the market growing again, though the long-term trend remains. Ten years ago, sales to public cloud providers accounted for just 20% of the market. That rose to 55% in 2024, and our forecast shows it reaching almost 65% five years from now,” projected Dinsdale.
