Analysts company Gartner predicts that worldwide IT spending will grow by 8% this year, amounting to $5.06 trillion. This growth is an increase on the 6.8% growth forecast in the previous quarter, and puts worldwide IT spending on track to pass $8 trillion by 2030.

The two segments that appear to perform best in 2024 compared to 2023 are data center systems and appliances. In the case of Data Center Systems, growth is expected to jump from 4% in 2023 to 10% in 2024. The devices will jump from 9.1% to 3.6%.

The data center systems segment will grow due to the focus on generative AI. comments on It sector, John David Lovelock, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, said:

“We are seeing a story, plan, execute cycle when it comes to GenAI. In 2023, organizations told the GenAI story and in 2024 we see most of them planning for execution eventually in 2025. Technology providers are required to be a step ahead of this cycle and are already in the execution. They bring GenAI capabilities to existing products and services, as well as use cases identified by their enterprise customers.”

Regarding the device segment, Gartner said that the lifespan of mobile phones is actually decreasing and that customers around the world are replacing their devices earlier. The implication of this change is that spending should reach $688 billion in 2024, compared to $664 billion in 2023.

It will be interesting to see the spending figures released after the year is out to see if Gartner was right about this. With interest rates still higher than before, IT spending could miss the mark if businesses are forced to continue spending.

By the time we get the actual data next year, we should also be able to monitor the forecasts each quarter as the end of the year approaches to see if the forecast is revised up or down.