#USA #San Jose #Open Compute Project #OCP #IDC Report

IDC Increases Forecast on OCP Infrastructure Spending

The Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation recently announced a substantial revision of IDC's projections regarding the global spending on IT infrastructure recognized by OCP. This increase, calculated at 2.7 times previous estimations, raises the annual spending forecast for 2029 to an impressive $800 billion. The new figures also predict that by 2030, total spending could reach $892 billion, demonstrating a clear trend towards more investments in infrastructure as stakeholders look to meet the accelerating demands of artificial intelligence (AI).

The IDC study, commissioned annually by the OCP Foundation, captures the effects of critical market trends, providing insight into how companies adapt to the rapid changes in technology and requirements driven by AI. According to the latest findings, this remarkable growth in spending speaks volumes about the significant role that IT infrastructures recognized by OCP will play, accounting for an estimated 51% of total spending in the analyzed categories by 2030.

Dr. Cliff Grossner, Director of Innovation at the OCP Foundation, commented on the findings, emphasizing that “AI is reshaping what the industry requires from its infrastructure, and these results highlight the increasingly vital role of open designs in meeting those demands.” This transformation equally illustrates how essential collaboration among stakeholders is in overcoming challenges throughout the data center, from semiconductors and servers to cooling systems and power management.

Rising Demand and Investing in the Future

The rising integration of AI in various sectors is a main driver behind these surging numbers; IDC predicts that spending on OCP-recognized IT equipment will surge from approximately $154 billion in 2025 to an astonishing $892 billion by 2030. This drastic increase signifies a compound annual growth rate of roughly 42%. Among various categories, servers are set to account for the biggest share of this expenditure, largely propelled by systems accelerated by GPU technology.

IDC's comprehensive analysis anticipates ongoing growth in spending across multiple areas, including switching equipment, rack infrastructure, and power and cooling systems. Organizations are urgently implementing systems capable of handling more demanding workloads as they integrate new technologies at scale.

Among the key findings from the IDC study are the following:

• - Projected annual spending of $800 billion for 2029, approximately 2.7 times the previous forecast for the same year.
• - Projected annual spending of $892 billion for 2030, with around $814 billion specifically allocated for servers.
• - An estimated 51% of spending in the analyzed infrastructure categories will be directed towards OCP-recognized infrastructures by 2030.
• - A projected total of approximately $628 billion in spending related to AI within OCP-recognized infrastructures in 2030, representing close to 70% of anticipated total spending.

Additionally, IDC pointed out the growing ecosystem of solutions providers and the increasing availability of openly shared designs as factors driving the uptake of OCP-recognized equipment. This trend extends beyond formal OCP members and spreads to organizations globally leveraging those designs for their operations.

Promoting Open Infrastructure

The findings from this report reinforce OCP’s expanded vision of the open data center ecosystem that addresses the interconnected requirements of AI infrastructure, spanning from chips to electrical networks. Over the past year, the OCP community has driven advancements in higher-power rack designs, liquid cooling technologies, and Ethernet-based AI networks, along with open specifications for chiplets.

OCP’s collaborative efforts include exploring new frontiers in power distribution, energy storage, and enhancing synergies between data centers and the electrical grid. The strategic initiative “Open Data Center for AI” effectively consolidates these efforts across power management, cooling, and infrastructure management. OCP projects such as Energy and AI Computing Continuum foster collaboration in energy generation and storage, extending deployment considerations beyond hyper-scale data centers to enterprise, regional, and edge environments.

As AI infrastructure continues to evolve, OCP is committed to supporting a diverse array of AI chips, coordinating designs throughout the data center and developing modular open components that organizations can integrate into a broader range of settings.

About the Study

The 2026 market impact study by IDC, commissioned by the OCP Foundation, examines worldwide spending on OCP-recognized IT equipment. The scope of the forecast includes servers, external storage, switches, rack systems, power and cooling equipment, operator gear, and peripherals. The reported figures represent annual spending with rounded percentages.

About Open Compute Project Foundation

The Open Compute Project Foundation brings together the global community of data centers and IT infrastructure to develop open hardware designs, specifications, and best practices. OCP helps organizations implement proven hyper-scale innovations into the general market through open collaboration. For more information, please visit opencompute.org.