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Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The $2 trillion figure in the original headline was Gartner’s September 2025 forecast for worldwide AI spending in 2026. Gartner revised that estimate in September 2026: its latest forecast puts 2026 spending at $2.670 trillion, with AI infrastructure by far the largest category. Both figures are forecasts, not totals of money already spent.
Why the $2 trillion headline has changed
On September 17, 2025, Gartner forecast worldwide AI spending of $2.023 trillion in 2026. One year later, Gartner’s September 16, 2026 release raised its forecast for that same year to $2.670 trillion. The later estimate is about $647 billion higher, but it should be read as a revised projection—not proof that spending reached either amount.
Gartner’s two releases also use different category boundaries. Its 2026 edition separates cross-functional agents and assistants from AI software and adds consumer agents and assistants. That means the two editions are not a like-for-like ledger in which every category can be directly compared.
Where Gartner forecasts the 2026 spending to go
Gartner’s September 2026 forecast divides the worldwide total into these listed categories. Values are forecast spending for 2026, not audited actuals.
#1 Best Overall
| Gartner category | 2026 forecast |
|---|---|
| AI infrastructure | $1,484.397 billion |
| AI services | $576.481 billion |
| AI software | $461.637 billion |
| AI cybersecurity | $51.347 billion |
| AI agents and assistants | $29.219 billion |
| Generative AI models | $28.266 billion |
| AI platforms for data science and machine learning | $26.445 billion |
| AI application development platforms | $9.541 billion |
| AI data | $3.126 billion |
Infrastructure accounts for more than half of Gartner’s forecast total. Services and software are the next largest listed categories. These are Gartner’s market categories; they should not be treated as an independently audited accounting of every dollar connected to AI.
Infrastructure: the largest forecast category
Gartner says demand for infrastructure remains strong amid anticipated future workloads. It points to hyperscalers and service providers buying AI-optimized servers as the largest single area of spending. John-David Lovelock, Gartner distinguished vice president analyst, said: “The capacity growth from hyperscalers and service providers purchasing AI-optimized servers will continue to be the largest single area of spending.”
A separate Gartner forecast helps show how infrastructure demand may extend beyond training systems. In August 2026, Gartner forecast $42.276 billion in worldwide spending on AI-optimized infrastructure as a service (IaaS) for 2026, including $23.3 billion for inference, compared with $19 billion for training. That IaaS figure is a narrower market measure, not a substitute for the much broader infrastructure category in the global forecast.
Services and software: putting AI into use
Gartner attributes software demand in part to vendors embedding agentic AI into existing products. It says enterprises are using these features in efforts involving operational efficiency, workflow automation, customer engagement and decision support. Those are Gartner’s explanations of the forecast, not independently verified outcomes for every business that adopts the tools.
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Models and platforms: a narrower market view
In a separate July 2026 forecast, Gartner put 2026 end-user spending on AI models and platforms at $64.252 billion. That included $23.356 billion for foundation generative AI models and $4.910 billion for domain-specific and specialized generative models. The measure has a narrower scope than global AI spending, and its relationship to the broader categories should not be assumed to be additive.
What an earlier forecast said about hardware and devices
Gartner’s September 2025 release offered a more granular hardware and consumer-device breakdown. The figures below are Gartner’s forecasts for 2026 as published in 2025; they are not the revised 2026 edition’s category values.
| Category in Gartner’s September 2025 forecast | 2025 forecast | 2026 forecast |
|---|---|---|
| AI-optimized servers | $267.534 billion | $329.528 billion |
| AI processing semiconductors | $209.192 billion | $267.934 billion |
| AI PCs | $90.432 billion | $144.413 billion |
| GenAI smartphones | $298.189 billion | $393.297 billion |
The 2025 figures in this table were forecasts for that year, not reported final spending. These device and component categories help explain the earlier edition’s view of where growth could come from, but they should not be added to the 2026 edition’s category table: the forecasts come from different releases and taxonomies.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What is driving the scale of the forecast
Gartner’s September 2026 explanation centers on capacity for anticipated workloads and software vendors adding AI capabilities to products. The earlier September 2025 forecast emphasized data-center expansion, AI-optimized hardware and GPUs, and investment spreading beyond traditional U.S. technology companies to Chinese companies and newer AI cloud providers. Gartner also identified venture capital as a tailwind in that release.
In 2025, Lovelock described the forecast as assuming continued infrastructure expansion, with major hyperscalers increasing investment in data centers and AI-optimized hardware and GPUs to scale their services. That statement explains the assumptions behind the older projection; it is not a guarantee that the forecast’s spending would occur.
Quick Recap
How to interpret the numbers
- Keep the forecast edition attached to the figure. The $2.023 trillion estimate was Gartner’s 2025 forecast for 2026; $2.670 trillion is Gartner’s 2026 forecast for that same year.
- Do not call a forecast actual spending. The cited releases provide projections, not a verified final tally of 2026 expenditure.
- Do not mechanically add narrow market estimates to the global total. The model-and-platform and AI-optimized IaaS forecasts have distinct scopes and may overlap with broader categories.
- Read category changes as taxonomy changes, too. Gartner revised its total and its category definitions between editions, so a difference does not by itself show how much real-world spending grew.
- Treat the total as a market estimate, not a household budget item. It aggregates spending across categories and organizations; it does not indicate what an individual consumer will spend on AI.
Sources
- Gartner, September 16, 2026 worldwide AI spending forecast.
- Gartner, September 17, 2025 worldwide AI spending forecast.
- ITPro, Original article matching the $2 trillion headline.
- Gartner, July 2026 forecast for AI models and platforms.
- Gartner, August 2026 forecast for AI-optimized IaaS.
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