Gartner projects worldwide IT spending will reach $6.37 trillion in 2026. This represents a 14.2% increase from 2025. The firm previously forecast growth of 10.8% in February and 13.5% in April.
Massive investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure drives this accelerated growth. The AI boom is redirecting technology spending toward data center systems and infrastructure as a service.
Spending on data center systems will jump 62.5% to $822 billion in 2026. Gartner describes the AI compute build-out as potentially the largest infrastructure project in human history.