At the Esports World Cup in Paris, Andrew Rogers of BBC Tech Now reported on the latest gaming hardware — but the real battle is being fought in data centres. Tech companies are pouring an unprecedented $1 trillion into AI infrastructure, and enterprise customers are already feeling the pinch through higher hardware and software prices, according to a Gartner analyst.
John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, told The Register that tech companies' own technology spending already amounts to around $1 trillion and is set to grow by 34.7% in 2026. The colossal splurge is driving global sales, leading Gartner to raise its 2026 estimates to $6.37 trillion — a surge of 14.2% year-on-year. That's up from April's forecast of $6.31 trillion and February's $6.15 trillion.
“AI infrastructure spending hits $1 trillion, driving price hikes for hardware and software, Gartner says.”
Lovelock described the build-out as "the largest infrastructure project humanity has ever undertaken. Bigger than the US highways, bigger than European rail, bigger than the Great Wall of China, and the International Space Station combined." He added: "We are shifting from a world where we spend on information technology to a world where we're going to spend on intelligence technology."
The spending is moving at three speeds: devices (including consumer purchases and business laptops) are set to grow by 9.8%, but a significant chunk of that increase comes from higher prices as memory and chips become more expensive. Services and telecoms lag behind at 5.3% and 4.4% respectively. Infrastructure as a service — one segment of cloud computing — is on pace to grow by 29.3% this year to reach $287 billion, up from 25.3% growth in 2025. Gartner's figures exclude the buildings and cooling systems themselves.
As enterprise software companies embed AI into products and partner with foundation model builders such as OpenAI and Anthropic, organisations buying IT are concerned about price increases. Lovelock said: "CIOs are extremely concerned about price increases coming at them from all of their vendors, and they are pushing back hard in every area where they can. But the only place that they're being successful is in the IT services area, where when a service provider adds AI to their product offering, the service provider is rewarded with a lower price point from their customers."
The shift raises unanswered questions about whether the market can sustain the increases, or whether higher prices are a defensive move by vendors trying to protect market share. For consumers, the impact is already visible: in the BBC Tech Now episode, Laura Cress demonstrated how to build a gaming PC — a task made pricier by the very chip shortages and memory cost hikes that Lovelock highlighted. Meanwhile, Shiona McCallum explored how AI is reshaping job recruitment, a trend that may accelerate as companies seek to justify their AI investments.