According to a Gartner press release issued in Stamford on 27 July 2026, worldwide IT spending is projected to reach 6.37 trillion dollars in 2026, an increase of 14.2% over 2025.

Gartner forecasts data center systems growing from 506 to 822 billion dollars (+62.5%) and infrastructure as a service growing from 222 to 287 billion dollars (+29.3%). John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, identifies data center systems and IaaS as the highest-growth segments and describes building the compute capacity required for AI as the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken by humanity.

Gartner forecasts services growing 5.3%, from 1,492 to 1,570 billion dollars, against 62.5% for data center systems. Our own reading, not Gartner's, is that with inflation and salary drift consuming part of that growth, purchasing capacity for external delivery is close to flat in real terms while AI-related workload increases, which pushes delivery cost to become the adjustment variable.

No. They are worldwide market forecasts describing aggregate flows across the global economy. They should not be presented as a projection of any individual company's IT budget.

Require before and after metrics on the same unit of delivery for named accounts, the measurement method including what was excluded, a statement of who absorbs the risk if the gain does not materialise, and the human review model behind AI-assisted output with clear accountability for defects. Treat unquantified productivity claims as zero.

Indexation with a defined index, a cap and a review cadence; productivity clauses committing to a year-on-year reduction in unit cost measured on agreed unit economics; portability with buyer ownership of code, prompts, configurations, runbooks and documentation in contractual delivery formats; and reversibility with a defined exit plan covering duration, cost and knowledge transfer agreed at signature.