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 business and technology insights company 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,” said 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,” said Lovelock. “Software and services spending growth in 2025 does not recover in the same way as devices and data center 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 (see Table 1).”
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,” said 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 center systems, the race to build AI infrastructure has further increased demand and growth expectations for data center servers, especially AI-optimized server racks. However, server demand growth remains limited by supply constraints,” continued Lovelock.
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.
