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These are broad Gartner IT-spending categories—not five individual technologies, companies, or investment sectors. The $5.6 trillion figure was also a forecast, not a final audited tally of actual 2025 spending. Gartner later revised its estimate.
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The five largest technology-spending categories
| Rank | Gartner category | 2025 forecast | 2024 spending | 2025 growth | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IT services | $1.731 trillion | $1.588 trillion | 9.0% | 30.8% |
| 2 | Communications services | $1.424 trillion | $1.372 trillion | 3.8% | 25.3% |
| 3 | Software | $1.247 trillion | $1.092 trillion | 14.2% | 22.2% |
| 4 | Devices | $810.2 billion | $734.2 billion | 10.4% | 14.4% |
| 5 | Data-center systems | $405.5 billion | $329.1 billion | 23.2% | 7.2% |
Shares are calculations from Gartner’s January 2025 figures and may not total exactly because of rounding.
The five categories together account for essentially the entire market covered by Gartner’s worldwide IT-spending forecast. IT services and communications services alone represented roughly 56% of the total, showing that the biggest technology markets are not necessarily the newest or fastest-growing ones.
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Read Gartner’s January 2025 forecast.
1. IT services: $1.731 trillion
IT services was Gartner’s largest category, representing approximately 30.8% of the forecast total. It includes consulting, implementation, application services, infrastructure services, managed services, outsourcing, and related technology work.
Its size reflects a basic reality of technology spending: organizations need people and operating capabilities to make software, cloud platforms, networks, and data systems useful. AI adoption can increase demand for data modernization, cloud migration, cybersecurity, governance, application implementation, and managed operations.
For vendors and service providers, the opportunity is enormous but not automatically profitable. Skills shortages, labor costs, subcontracting, inflation, and customer pressure to demonstrate measurable AI returns can limit margins. For investors, a large addressable market should therefore be distinguished from high-margin growth.
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Communications services ranked second despite growing just 3.8%, the slowest rate among the five categories. The category is much broader than collaboration applications such as video conferencing or business messaging. It includes telecommunications and related communications spending; related business areas can include connectivity, unified communications, contact centers, and network services.
This is a mature, recurring-spend market. Its enormous base means even modest growth produces substantial dollars: the category added approximately $52.0 billion compared with Gartner’s 2024 figure.
Commercial opportunities are more likely to involve network modernization, managed connectivity, SD-WAN, network-as-a-service, security, unified communications, and contact-center transformation than basic connectivity alone. Regulation, existing telecom contracts, geographic availability, and implementation costs can all affect the economics.
CRN’s explanation of Gartner’s categories provides additional context, but communications services should not be treated as synonymous with collaboration software.
3. Software: $1.247 trillion
Software spending was forecast at $1.247 trillion, up 14.2% and equivalent to about 22.2% of the total. The category includes application software, infrastructure software, cloud platforms, cybersecurity, data-management tools, automation, and AI-enabled features.
AI was expected to influence software budgets, but Gartner cautioned that much near-term spending would occur inside existing product categories rather than through a separate, easily measured “generative-AI market.” A business may pay for AI capabilities through its productivity suite, CRM, security platform, cloud service, or service-management system.
That creates both opportunity and risk. Vendors can upsell AI functionality and recurring subscriptions, while buyers may face higher licensing costs, overlapping tools, integration work, data-protection concerns, and uncertain returns. Before adding another AI subscription, organizations should check whether equivalent features already exist in software they use.
4. Devices: $810.2 billion
Devices were forecast to generate $810.2 billion in spending, up 10.4%. Gartner’s category covers broad device spending, including PCs, mobile phones, tablets, and other relevant enterprise and consumer hardware.
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For businesses, the financial decision should include more than the sticker price. Deployment, warranties, endpoint security, device management, accessories, repair, recycling, employee support, and replacement timing all contribute to total cost of ownership. Device-as-a-service and lifecycle management can be more valuable than simply buying the newest AI-labeled hardware.
Weak replacement demand, interest rates, supply constraints, tariffs, consumer price sensitivity, and unclear differentiation between AI-capable and conventional devices remain relevant risks.
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5. Data-center systems: $405.5 billion
Data-center systems was the smallest of the five categories by absolute spending but the fastest-growing, with a forecast increase of 23.2% to $405.5 billion. It includes servers, storage, networking, and related data-center infrastructure.
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The primary driver was expected to be AI-optimized server investment by hyperscalers and enterprises. Gartner projected approximately $202 billion in AI-optimized-server spending in 2025—more than twice spending on traditional servers—and said IT services companies and hyperscalers would account for more than 70% of spending. Those figures are Gartner estimates and should not be treated as an independent measure of the entire AI market.
AI infrastructure demand extends beyond accelerators. It can create requirements for high-speed networking, memory, storage, power systems, cooling, data-center construction, systems integration, infrastructure management, and financing.
The trade-off is that this growth is capital-intensive and supply-constrained. Semiconductor and memory availability, power capacity, cooling, permitting, long deployment times, changing accelerator generations, and uncertain utilization can affect returns. Data-center systems spending is also not the same thing as the entire data-center construction, energy, or real-estate ecosystem.
Gartner’s server forecast provides the source for the AI-optimized-server estimate.
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AI was a cross-category spending driver—not a sixth market
AI appeared across the forecast rather than as a standalone category that could simply be added to the $5.6178 trillion total.
- Infrastructure: AI workloads increased demand for servers, networking, storage, power, and cooling.
- Cloud: Hyperscalers expanded capacity and sold compute and managed AI services.
- Software: AI features were embedded in productivity, security, CRM, data, and automation platforms.
- Devices: AI-capable PCs and phones entered refresh decisions, although their features were not always essential.
- Services: Consulting, integration, governance, training, and managed operations supported adoption.
Adding a separate AI-market estimate to Gartner’s total without proving that the methodologies are compatible would double-count spending. Gartner also warned that price increases could absorb part of the nominal budget growth, so a 9.8% increase in dollar spending does not necessarily mean 9.8% more technology purchasing power.
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What Gartner’s forecast covered
The forecast was worldwide, measured in U.S. dollars, and expressed as nominal spending rather than inflation-adjusted real growth. It covered hardware, software, IT services, and telecommunications-related categories across business and consumer markets.
Gartner says its methodology uses analysis of sales by more than 1,000 vendors, primary research, and secondary research to build its market-size database. The figures measure spending, not vendor revenue rankings, company valuations, market capitalization, or profitability.
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That scope explains why the total should not be described as enterprise-only spending. Consumer-related devices and communications spending are included within the broad worldwide market.
The forecast changed after January 2025
The $5.6178 trillion figure is best understood as a point-in-time forecast. Gartner subsequently changed its estimate for 2025:
| Gartner publication date | 2025 worldwide IT-spending estimate |
|---|---|
| October 23, 2024 | $5.747 trillion |
| January 21, 2025 | $5.618 trillion |
| July 15, 2025 | $5.436 trillion |
| October 22, 2025 | $5.540 trillion |
| February 3, 2026 | $5.555 trillion |
| April 22, 2026 | $5.564 trillion |
The revisions reflect changing assumptions about macroeconomic uncertainty, AI infrastructure, devices, software, services, and communications spending. The later estimates do not invalidate the January ranking; they show why forecast dates must accompany headline figures.
In a later update, Gartner projected 2025 data-center-systems spending at $505.6 billion—materially above the January forecast—and 2026 spending at $788.0 billion. That change illustrates how rapidly AI infrastructure assumptions evolved. See Gartner’s April 2026 update.
What the ranking means for CIOs, vendors, and investors
For CIOs
The ranking is not a spending mandate. A practical technology budget should prioritize measurable business outcomes, integration, security, privacy, regulatory requirements, total cost of ownership, available skills, infrastructure capacity, portability, procurement exposure, and the ability to scale down unsuccessful pilots.
AI projects in particular should be evaluated against data readiness, network and compute requirements, employee adoption, governance, and ongoing operating costs—not just the initial software or cloud bill.
For technology vendors
The fastest-growing category is not automatically the best business. Data-center infrastructure has strong momentum but requires capital and reliable supply. Software offers recurring revenue but faces intense competition and pricing pressure. IT services has scale but depends on scarce talent. Communications services is huge and recurring but mature and regulated. Devices offer volume and refresh opportunities but often have weaker differentiation and margins.
For channel partners and MSPs
The strongest opportunities often sit between categories: AI-readiness assessments, cloud and data-center modernization, managed infrastructure, cybersecurity, identity, network-as-a-service, device lifecycle management, software-license optimization, data governance, employee enablement, FinOps, and infrastructure-cost control.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesA provider that combines hardware, software, networking, security, and managed services may capture more customer value than one selling a single product category. Buyers should compare complete solution costs rather than assuming the largest market category is the best place to spend.
How to read the numbers without being misled
- “Largest” means largest by forecast spending, not fastest growth or profitability.
- “Top five tech markets” refers to Gartner spending categories, not five individual technologies.
- The January figure is a forecast published on January 21, 2025, not a final actual result.
- AI is a cross-market driver; it is not safe to add AI estimates to the total.
- Communications services is broader than collaboration software.
- Data-center systems is smaller than services or software in absolute dollars but grew fastest in the January forecast.
- Nominal dollar growth can overstate real increases in purchasing power when prices rise.
For personal investors and business readers, the most useful conclusion is therefore not that one category will automatically produce the best returns. It is that AI is reshaping several large spending pools at once, with different capital requirements, competitive dynamics, and execution risks.
Sources: Gartner, January 2025; Gartner, October 2024; Gartner, July 2025; Gartner, October 2025; Gartner, February 2026.
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