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Bengaluru: With Artificial Intelligence (AI) being integrated into products such as smartphones and PCs, overall global AI spending is projected to top $2 trillion in 2026, according to business and technology insights company Gartner. On Tuesday, it said continuous demand for AI is expected to fuel investments in IT infrastructure.
It also forecasts that worldwide AI spending will total $1.5 trillion in 2025. Last year, total AI spending stood at $9,87,904 million.
"The forecast assumes continued investment in AI infrastructure expansion, as major hyperscalers continue to increase investments in data centres with AI-optimised hardware and GPUs to scale their services,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner.
“The AI investment landscape is also expanding beyond traditional US tech giants, including Chinese companies and new AI cloud providers. Furthermore, venture capital investment in AI providers is providing additional tailwinds for AI spending," he added.
Gartner report showed that of the total $2 trillion spending in 2026, the AI services market will witness $3,24,669 million in 2026 from $2,82,556 million in 2025. Spending on Gen AI models will increase 81% from $14,200 million in 2025 to $25,766 million next year. Also, GenAI smartphone spending will increase about 32% to reach $3,93,297 million in 2026 from $2,98,189 in 2025.
Recently, in a separate report, Gartner revealed that sovereign AI and AI agents are expected to shape public sector adoption of AI within the next two to five years.
It predicts that by 2029, 60% of government agencies globally will leverage AI agents to automate over half of the citizen transactional interactions, up from less than 10% in 2025. AI agents are autonomous or semiautonomous software entities that use AI techniques to perceive, make decisions, take actions and achieve goals in their digital or physical environments, it added.