Gartner Inc. forecasts worldwide IT spending to grow to $5.61 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.8% from 2024.
"While budgets for CIOs are increasing, a significant portion will merely offset price increases within their recurrent spending," said John-David Lovelock, distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. "This means that 2025 nominal spending versus real IT spending will be skewed, with price hikes absorbing some or all of budget growth. All major categories reflect higher-than-expected prices, prompting CIOs to defer and scale back their true budget expectations."
GenAI-driven spending
Generative AI (GenAI) hardware upgrades will cause double-digit growth in 2025 in segments including data centre systems, devices, and software.
"GenAI is sliding toward the trough of disillusionment, which reflects CIOs' declining expectations for GenAI but not their spending on this technology," said Lovelock. "For instance, the new AI-ready PCs do not yet have 'must have' applications that utilise the hardware. While consumers and enterprises will purchase AI-enabled PCs, tablets and mobile phones, those purchases will not be overly influenced by the GenAI functionality."
AI-optimised servers
Gartner projects that spending on AI-optimised servers will reach $202 billion in 2025, doubling spending on traditional servers.
"IT services companies and hyperscalers account for over 70% of spending in 2025," said Lovelock. "By 2028, hyperscalers will operate 1 trillion dollars worth of AI-optimised servers, but not within their traditional business model or IaaS Market. Hyperscalers are pivoting to be part of the oligopoly AI model market."
