IT spending in Europe is projected to total $1.4 trillion in 2026, an increase of 11.1% from 2025, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc, a business and technology insights company. IT spending in Europe is on pace to reach $1.3 trillion by the end of 2025.
Gartner analysts recently discussed IT spending priorities for CIOs and IT leaders at the ongoing Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Barcelona.
“AI, cloud and cybersecurity are driving the rise in IT spending for European organizations in 2026,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “Despite IT budget constraints and minimal headcount growth, CIOs in Europe will be spending heavily on software to access new AI features from their current providers. Gartner projects end-user spending on GenAI models in Europe to grow 78.2% in 2026.”
“Cloud investments in Europe will be more turbulent in 2026 as CIOs focus on digital sovereignty and move their cloud services closer to home,” said Lovelock. Gartner projects end-user public cloud services spending to grow 24% in 2026.
In 2026, software spending will remain a high spending priority for European organizations as they aim for more intelligent, efficient and personalized applications (see Table 1). In addition, price increases across all software categories are raising software spending.
Table 1. Europe IT Spending Forecast (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| 2025 Spending | 2025Growth (%) | 2026 Spending | 2026Growth (%) | |
| Data Center Systems | 83,632 | 38.2 | 99,335 | 18.8 |
| Devices | 143,668 | 11.0 | 158,193 | 10.1 |
| Software | 290,235 | 14.7 | 335,409 | 15.6 |
| IT Services | 490,398 | 9.0 | 539,927 | 10.1 |
| Communications Services | 277,826 | 7.0 | 294,988 | 6.2 |
| Overall IT | 1,285,760 | 11.6 | 1,427,852 | 11.1 |
Source: Gartner (November 2025)
The devices market will experience a similar boost, with manufacturers adding AI features to devices and raising prices to offset the cost of additional hardware.
Building IT Infrastructure Remains Paramount in 2026
The push to develop AI infrastructure will continue to raise demand and growth expectations for servers, particularly AI-optimized servers. In Europe, end-user spending on AI-optimized servers is forecast to reach $46.8 billion in 2026, up from $39.3 billion in 2025, a distant third place to North America’s $170 billion and China’s $67 billion projected spending.
“Europe is facing regulatory pressure, competition between countries, geopolitical tensions, and national security concerns-all focused on making sure Europe can develop and manage AI systems on its own, without depending on foreign platforms or providers,” said Lovelock.
Lovelock added that while existing software providers add GenAI features to their products to encourage GenAI adoption, AI platforms made for Europe are becoming part of important national infrastructure.
Gartner predicts that by 2027, 35% of countries will be locked into region-specific AI platforms using proprietary contextual data. Gartner says platform lock-in will rise from 5% to 35% by 2027 as governments will urge major cloud providers to work with local companies to make their platforms more regional, to meet regulatory requirements and support national interests.
Gartner’s IT spending forecast methodology relies heavily on rigorous analysis of the sales by over a thousand vendors across the entire range of IT products and services. Gartner uses primary research techniques, complemented by secondary research sources, to build a comprehensive database of market size data on which to base its forecast.
