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IDC Predicts Dramatic Increase in Global IT Infrastructure Spending by 2029

The Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation recently announced significant findings from IDC's latest market impact study that suggests a remarkable surge in global expenditures on IT infrastructure acknowledged by the OCP. According to this study, annual spending is forecasted to reach approximately $800 billion by 2029, marking a staggering increase from last year's prediction of $295 billion for the same year. This amounts to an impressive increase of about 2.7 times.

Future Projections

Looking further ahead, IDC estimates that total spending could hit $892 billion by 2030, with OCP-recognized IT infrastructure expected to account for roughly 51% of all expenses across the measured infrastructure categories. This upward trend highlights the growing reliance on open designs to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Dr. Cliff Grossner, Director of Innovation at OCP, emphasized, "Artificial intelligence is transforming industry expectations on infrastructure, and these findings reflect the increasing role that open designs play in meeting this demand. Our community unites companies to collectively tackle challenges throughout the entire data center, ranging from chips and servers to cooling, power, and grid integration. Such collaboration aids organizations in implementing new technologies at scale."

Investment Surge

IDC's predictions indicate spending on OCP-recognized IT infrastructure will grow from about $154 billion in 2025 to $892 billion by 2030. This represents an average annual growth rate of about 42%.

Among the categories expected to drive the most significant expenditures are servers, particularly those utilizing GPU (graphics processing unit) acceleration systems. Additionally, IDC foresees ongoing growth in switching devices, rack infrastructure, power, and cooling as organizations build systems capable of supporting increasingly complex workloads.

Key Findings

• - $800 billion in projected annual spending by 2029, nearly 2.7 times the previous forecast.
• - $892 billion expected annual spending in 2030, with around $814 billion dedicated to servers.
• - Approximately 51% of spending across all measured infrastructure categories will be allocated to OCP-recognized infrastructure by 2030.
• - By 2030, AI-related infrastructure spending under the OCP could reach about $628 billion, comprising around 70% of the total forecasted amount.

IDC also points out the expanding ecosystem of solution providers and the availability of openly shared designs as key factors supporting the adoption of this infrastructure. The use of OCP-recognized IT equipment extends beyond formal membership and includes organizations worldwide that leverage and implement these designs.

Advancing Open Infrastructure

These insights reinforce OCP's expanded vision for an open data center ecosystem that addresses interconnected infrastructure requirements for AI, encompassing everything from chips to grid integration. Over the past year, the OCP community has made strides in high-performance rack designs, liquid cooling, AI-focused Ethernet networks, and open chiplet specifications. Their work surrounding devices also includes direct current distribution, energy storage, and coordination between data centers and the grid.

OCP’s strategic initiative, the Open Data Center for AI, unifies these efforts in power, cooling, and device management. The OCP Energy project aims to extend collaborations in energy generation and storage, while the Continuum for AI Computation project promotes deployments not only in hyperscale data centers but also in enterprise settings, regional, and edge environments.

With the growth of AI infrastructure, OCP plans to focus on supporting specialized AI chips, coordinating designs across the entire data center, and developing open building blocks that organizations can deploy in a broader range of environments.

About the Study

The 2026 Market Impact Study from IDC, commissioned by the OCP Foundation, examines global spending on OCP-recognized IT equipment. The forecast covers servers, external storage, switches, IT racks, power, cooling, telecommunications equipment, and peripherals. Data reflects annual expenditure trends, and percentages are rounded to offer a concise overview.

About the Open Compute Project

The Open Compute Project Foundation brings together a global community of data centers and IT infrastructure experts to develop open hardware designs, specifications, and best practices. OCP enables organizations to apply open collaboration to deliver innovations proven in hyperscale to the broader market. For more information, visit opencompute.org.