The demand for AI platform software is expected to grow 40% a year over the next four years, rising from $27.9 billion in sales last year to $153 billion in 2028, according to an earlier IDC report. That report focused on the rapid pace by which AI platforms, such as Microsoft Azure AI, Amazon AI services, Google Cloud AI, and OpenAI grew last year, and how that growth is projected to maintain a “remarkable momentum,” driven by the increasing adoption of technology across many industries.
A large remainder of AI spending, according to IDC, will be on AI application development and deployment and AI system software (which provides basic foundational layers that enable bare metal infrastructure hardware resources to host higher-level application development and deployment).
Spending on AI hardware, including servers, storage, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), will be the next-largest category of tech spending.