Gartner has raised its growth forecast for global IT spending to 13.5 percent for 2026, even as the International Energy Agency warns of a massive energy crisis following the US-Israel-Iran conflict. According to go.theregister.com, the research firm now expects total worldwide spending to reach $6.31 trillion, up from a previous estimate of $6.15 trillion.
John-David Lovelock, a Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, told the outlet that the recent spike in oil and gas prices lacks a direct connection to IT budgets. While the conflict has created significant energy market volatility, Lovelock noted that business and consumer confidence levels haven't shown measurable declines yet.
“The price of oil has very little to do with it,” Lovelock said. “The closest direct effect we can get is in some countries, the price of electricity will come up. There's some countries in Asia-Pacific where it's an issue. To say that a business or a technology provider is going to change their plans based on the price of electricity just isn't [true].”
AI and cloud infrastructure driving growth
Much of the projected growth stems from massive capital expenditures by hyperscalers building out data centers for artificial intelligence. Without the heavy spending on AI-optimized servers and cloud infrastructure, the overall growth rate for enterprise IT would sit much lower.
Lovelock clarified that excluding datacenter spending, the broader IT market is growing at a more modest 7.2 percent. He noted that the extra capital is concentrated among tech providers building the foundational technology required for AI models.
“All the extra spending is the tech providers, the hyperscalers, still building out these datacenters, still building new foundational technology together for us to use for AI and we're still building the AI models,” he said.
Consumer IT spending remains sluggish, growing at only 4.1 percent as the sector deals with rising memory costs. However, Gartner expects enterprise users to move past the current "trough of disillusionment" regarding AI projects as they begin to realize the long-term value of these massive infrastructure investments.
