Tech Sector AI Infrastructure Spending Hits $1 Trillion, Driving Record IT Cost Increases

Gartner raised its 2026 global IT spending forecast to $6.37 trillion as tech companies pour $1 trillion into AI infrastructure, while Verizon inks a $1 billion dark fiber deal with Google.

This article was drafted with AI assistance from multiple sources and was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication.

Global technology spending is on track to reach $6.37 trillion in 2026, according to a revised forecast from Gartner, driven largely by an unprecedented $1 trillion in AI infrastructure investments by tech companies themselves. The new estimate represents a 14.2% increase year over year, up from earlier projections of $6.31 trillion in April and $6.15 trillion in February.

Gartner analyst John-David Lovelock described the AI infrastructure build-out as "the largest infrastructure project humanity has ever undertaken." The spending figures exclude buildings and cooling systems, focusing instead on servers, networking equipment, and software.

The surge in capital expenditure is fueling cost increases for enterprise customers. CIOs report growing concern over price hikes from vendors, with successful pushback limited to the IT services segment. Model builders are shifting from capped subscription models to usage-based billing, while the availability of lower-cost AI models from China and open-source alternatives is prompting some developers to reduce reliance on expensive proprietary foundation models.

Among the fastest-growing segments, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is expected to grow 29.3% in 2026 to $287 billion, accelerating from 25.3% growth in 2025. The devices segment, including consumer and business hardware, is forecast to grow 9.8%, while services and telecoms are projected to grow 5.3% and 4.4%, respectively.

In a separate development highlighting the connectivity demands of AI, Verizon announced a deal worth more than $1 billion to link Google data centers using dark fiber routes. The partnership, disclosed during Verizon's Q2 2026 earnings call, is part of the carrier's broader "AI Connect" business initiative. Verizon is also converting central offices into small data centers designed for AI inference at the network edge. The company expects additional AI-related deals to generate "multiple billions of dollars in revenue over the next several years" by the end of 2026.