Worldwide IT spending is expected to total $6,08-trillion in 2026, an increase of 9,8% from 2025, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.
“The uncertainty pause that began in the second quarter of 2025 started to alleviate in the third quarter and a significant budget flush is anticipated before the end of the year,” says John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “Despite being in the trough of disillusionment in 2026, GenAI features are now ubiquitous across software already owned and operated by enterprises, and these features cost more money, aligning with this flush. The cost of software is going up and both the cost of features and functionality is going up as well thanks to GenAI.
“However, not all segments will experience this flush uniformly,” says Lovelock. “Software and services spending growth in 2025 does not recover in the same way as devices and data centre systems. For instance, vertical-specific software spending has been slightly more affected as vertical-industry-level software buyers are more sensitive to the policy changes and business uncertainties.”
Worldwide IT spending forecast (Millions of US dollars)
| 2025 Spending | 2025 Growth (%) | 2026 Spending | 2026 Growth (%) | ||
| Data Centre Systems | 489,451 | 46.8 | 582,446 | 19 | |
| Devices | 783,157 | 8.4 | 836,275 | 6.8 | |
| Software | 1,244,308 | 11.9 | 1,433,037 | 15.2 | |
| IT Services | 1,719,340 | 6.5 | 1,869,269 | 8.7 | |
| Communications Services | 1,304,165 | 3.8 | 1,363,058 | 4.5 | |
| Overall IT | 5,540,421 | 10 | 6,084,085 | 9.8 |
Source: Gartner (October 2025)
AI infrastructure and devices drive demand
Solid mobile phones and PCs shipment data over the first half of 2025 reported by vendors support the devices market’s strong growth projection for 2025, with spending expected to reach $783-billion in 2025 – an increase of over 8,4% from the previous year. Spending on devices in 2026 is expected to be strong, but a bit slower.
“This growth in 2025 is mainly driven by stronger-than-expected spending on mobile phones,” says Lovelock. “The availability of AI devices has also boosted overall spending by more than $30-billion. With the replacement cycle unchanged, the stronger performance in 2025 will result in a lower relative growth rate for 2026 as demand has been pulled forward.
“In other areas such as data centre systems the race to build AI infrastructure has further increased demand and growth expectations for data centre servers, especially AI-optimised server racks. However, server demand growth remains limited by supply constraints,” adds Lovelock.