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IDC reported that worldwide spending on compute and storage infrastructure used for cloud deployments reached $57.3 billion in Q3 2024, up 115.3% from Q3 2023. That means spending was about 2.153 times the year-earlier level. The figure describes infrastructure investment—not total cloud-service revenue, customer cloud bills, or the number of servers purchased.
The distinction matters: expensive GPU-accelerated systems for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) helped push spending sharply higher, while reported unit demand grew much more slowly. Cloud-services estimates for the same quarter, which measure a different market, grew around 21% to 23%.
What IDC’s “more than doubled” figure measures
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment tracks spending on compute and storage infrastructure deployed for cloud environments, including shared and dedicated deployments. IDC’s January 2025 release reported $57.3 billion worldwide in Q3 2024, a 115.3% year-over-year increase. The release framed growth as being fueled by investment in AI- and HPC-related projects. IDC’s release and Network World’s account of the figures provide the reported totals.
“More than doubled” compares Q3 2024 with Q3 2023. It does not describe a quarter-to-quarter jump, nor does it mean cloud use or server counts doubled. The $57.3 billion is not a measure of SaaS subscriptions, all cloud customer spending, or cloud providers’ total service revenue. IDC’s framework includes infrastructure used by service providers as well as other cloud deployments; it should not be read as equipment purchased only by end-user enterprises.
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Why spending rose far faster than unit demand
IDC attributed the surge chiefly to investment in accelerated servers for AI model development and HPC. GPU-heavy systems typically cost substantially more than conventional servers, so a shift in what buyers purchased can raise the dollar total much faster than the number of units. Network World’s account of IDC’s figures puts cloud infrastructure unit-demand growth at 15.6%, compared with spending growth of 115.3%, and reports higher average selling prices—particularly for GPU servers.
The gap points to a strong price-and-product-mix effect, not a 115.3% increase in physical capacity. AI and HPC were major drivers, but the statistic covers a wider category and does not establish that AI alone accounted for every dollar. IDC’s analyst Juan Pablo Seminara described 2024 investment primarily as a model-development build-out and said later investment could increasingly support inference, potentially using less-dense GPU platforms. Inference demand may therefore shape a different infrastructure mix from the initial training push.
Shared and dedicated cloud infrastructure
IDC separates infrastructure spending by deployment type. Its shared-cloud and dedicated-cloud figures are components of the same infrastructure-spending framework, not estimates of cloud-service revenue.
| IDC category, Q3 2024 | Spending | Year-over-year change | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared cloud infrastructure | $47.9 billion | +136.5% | 62.4% of total infrastructure spending, as reported in the IDC figures |
| Dedicated cloud infrastructure | $9.3 billion | +47.6% | Smaller category, with strong growth |
| Total cloud infrastructure | $57.3 billion | +115.3% | Compute and storage infrastructure |
Figures are IDC estimates for Q3 2024 versus Q3 2023, reproduced by Network World. Do not assume IDC’s “shared” and “dedicated” labels map exactly to the familiar terms public and private cloud; they are categories in IDC’s deployment framework.
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IDC’s regional estimates concern spending in its defined cloud-infrastructure category, not a universal measure of cloud adoption or service revenue. The United States recorded the largest growth rate among the regions listed below; Central and Eastern Europe was the only one with a reported decline.
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| Region | Q3 2024 year-over-year change |
|---|---|
| United States | +148.3% |
| China | +100.0% |
| Asia Pacific excluding Japan and China | +90.3% |
| Japan | +73.5% |
| Western Europe | +40.1% |
| Canada | +38.5% |
| Latin America | +34.8% |
| Middle East and Africa | +6.7% |
| Central and Eastern Europe | −1.7% |
These regional growth figures are reported by Network World from IDC’s estimates. Growth rates alone do not show the regions’ dollar totals or their shares of global spending.
Why the $57.3 billion figure differs from cloud-services estimates
Two other firms estimated Q3 2024 cloud infrastructure-services spending at roughly $82 billion to $84 billion, with growth far below IDC’s infrastructure-spending increase. The numbers are not competing estimates of an identical market: IDC measures compute and storage infrastructure investment for cloud deployments, while Synergy and Canalys track cloud infrastructure services.
| Estimate and source | Q3 2024 figure | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| IDC, reported by Network World | $57.3 billion; +115.3% year over year | Compute and storage infrastructure used for cloud deployments |
| Synergy Research Group | $83.8 billion; +23% year over year | Cloud infrastructure services, including IaaS, PaaS, and hosted private-cloud services |
| Canalys, as reported by Telecompaper | $82 billion; +21% year over year | Cloud infrastructure services |
Infrastructure purchases can rise before their value is fully reflected in service revenue: providers buy equipment and monetize its capacity over time. The firms also use different market boundaries, data sources, and accounting methods, so the totals should not be added together or compared as if they were interchangeable. A surge in hardware investment does not by itself prove that the resulting capacity is fully utilized or that providers’ margins improved; accelerator systems, facilities, power, and networking also cost money.
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What provider figures can—and cannot—show
Synergy estimated Q3 2024 shares of the worldwide public-cloud infrastructure-services market at approximately 31% for Amazon, 20% for Microsoft, and 13% for Google—about 68% combined. Those are shares of Synergy’s services market, not shares of IDC’s $57.3 billion infrastructure-spending total. Synergy’s estimate gives the market context.
Company-reported segment figures provide additional context but are not directly comparable across vendors. Twimbit’s compilation of Q3 2024 company reports lists AWS revenue at approximately $27.5 billion, up 19.1%; Microsoft Intelligent Cloud at approximately $24.1 billion, up 20.4%; Google Cloud at approximately $11.3 billion, up 35%; and Oracle Infrastructure Cloud at approximately $2.2 billion, up 46.7%, using Twimbit’s methodology. Twimbit’s report is the source for this compilation.
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- AWS: Amazon reports AWS revenue directly.
- Microsoft: Intelligent Cloud is broader than Azure alone; Microsoft does not report a standalone Azure revenue figure in the same manner.
- Google: Google Cloud includes Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace, not only infrastructure.
- Oracle: The cited figure is Oracle Infrastructure Cloud under Twimbit’s methodology.
These vendor figures use different segment boundaries and reporting methods. They should not be treated as a ranking of pure infrastructure revenue or substituted for IDC’s market estimate.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What IDC forecast at the time
IDC’s forecasts reported in early 2025 were projections, not later-verified outcomes. The figures below describe what IDC expected for 2024 and 2028 when the estimates were published; they should not be read as current actuals or guaranteed results.
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|---|---|
| 2024 cloud infrastructure spending | $192 billion, up 74.3% |
| 2024 non-cloud infrastructure spending | $71.4 billion, up 17.9% |
| 2024 shared-cloud infrastructure | $157.8 billion, up 88.9% |
| 2024 dedicated-cloud infrastructure | $34.2 billion, up 28.6% |
| Service providers’ 2024 compute and storage investment | $183.1 billion, up 73.5% |
| Cloud-infrastructure spending, 2024–2028 | 24.2% compound annual growth rate |
| 2028 cloud-infrastructure spending | $325.5 billion |
| Shared cloud’s projected 2028 share | 79.1% |
These forecasts were reported by Network World from IDC. A forecast is a planning scenario, not evidence that spending ultimately reached the projected level.
What the surge means for infrastructure buyers
For a business planning AI or cloud capacity, the market-wide spending figure is not a forecast of its own bill. It does signal that accelerator-heavy infrastructure was attracting large investment, but a purchase decision still depends on workload, availability, utilization, and total cost—not on aggregate growth alone.
- Model the workload first. Distinguish training from inference and estimate the required GPU memory, throughput, and utilization before choosing a system or service.
- Compare full costs. Include accelerator time, storage, networking, data movement or egress, power and facility needs for owned equipment, and the cost of idle capacity.
- Test utilization assumptions. A reserved or purchased GPU that sits idle can undermine the economics even when market demand is high. Pilot workloads and monitor utilization before scaling commitments.
- Compare cloud, colocation, and owned capacity on a consistent horizon. Include procurement lead times, support, flexibility, and the risk of hardware becoming unsuitable—not just the quoted compute rate.
- Set cost ownership and controls. Assign costs to teams or projects, establish budgets and alerts, and review usage regularly. Native cloud billing tools may suit a single-provider environment; cross-cloud platforms can add allocation and reporting but also introduce fees and implementation work.
FinOps—the practice of connecting cloud spending with business value and operational accountability—can help organizations set those processes before buying additional tooling. The FinOps Foundation provides framework and community resources; it is not itself a turnkey billing or optimization platform.
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