Worldwide IT spending is expected to total $5.61 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.8 per cent from 2024, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.
“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, in 2025, nominal spending versus real IT spending will be skewed, with price hikes absorbing some or all of budget growth. All major categories are reflecting higher-than-expected prices, prompting CIOs to defer and scale back their true budget expectations.”
GenAI will influence IT spending, but IT spending won’t be on GenAI itself
Segments including data centre systems, devices and software will see double-digit growth in 2025, largely due to generative AI (GenAI) hardware upgrades (see Table 1). However, these upgraded segments will not differentiate themselves in terms of functionality yet, even with new hardware.
Table 1. Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
“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 both consumers and enterprises will purchase AI-enabled PC, tablets and mobile phones, those purchases will not be overly influenced by the GenAI functionality.”
Spending on AI-optimised servers easily doubles spending on traditional servers in 2025, reaching $202 billion dollars.
“IT services companies and hyperscalers account for over 70 per cent 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.”
Gartner’s IT spending forecast methodology relies heavily on rigorous analysis of the sales by over a thousand vendors across the entire range of IT products and services. Gartner uses primary research techniques, complemented by secondary research sources, to build a comprehensive database of market size data on which to base its forecast.
The Gartner quarterly IT spending forecast delivers a unique perspective on IT spending across the hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications segments. These reports help Gartner clients understand market opportunities and challenges. The most recent IT spending forecast research is available to Gartner clients in “Gartner Market Databook, 4Q24 Update.”
More information on the forecast can be found in the complimentary Gartner webinar “IT Spending Forecast, 4Q24 Update: GenAI’s Impact on a $7 trillion IT Market.”
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