Dell'Oro: Data Center Capital Expenditures Expected to Surpass $1 Trillion in 2026

data center

According to a recent report from Dell’Oro Group, an authoritative source of market information in the telecommunications, security, networking, and data center industries, global data center capital expenditures grew by 57% in 2025, driven by accelerated AI deployment and investments in general infrastructure. We anticipate that hyperscale cloud providers and AI model developers will maintain strong capital expenditure momentum in 2026.

Baron Fung, Senior Research Director at Dell’Oro Group, stated, “The four major U.S. cloud service providers—Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft—saw a 76% increase in data center capital expenditures in 2025. Oracle expanded its Stargate project capacity, more than tripling its data center capital expenditures.”

“This growth is attributed to the development of AI infrastructure and additional investments in general-purpose servers and storage to support AI and cloud workloads. We forecast that global data center capital expenditures will exceed $1 trillion in 2026. This trillion-dollar threshold marks a significant milestone, driven primarily by over 10 million high-end accelerators and related infrastructure.”

Fung explained, “Most AI-related investments are directed toward supporting cutting-edge models within hyperscale cloud providers, but funding for AI model developers’ growth objectives is also increasing. While the majority of AI investments go toward training workloads, future inference workloads may become a greater driver of capital expenditures, especially as demand-intensive inference models become more widespread. Such high levels of investment could lead to AI infrastructure overcapacity, though hyperscale cloud providers are taking proactive measures to mitigate risks and optimize costs.”

The key points of the fourth-quarter 2025 data center IT capital expenditure report

Global data center capital expenditure is expected to grow by over 50% in 2026;

We forecast that the average selling price of general-purpose servers will increase by a high double-digit percentage in 2026, driven primarily by rising prices of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and storage;

In 2025, driven by strong shipments of NVIDIA Blackwell, Dell led all original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in AI-optimized server revenue, with Supermicro close behind. With the support of hyperscale AI deployments (for Blackwell and custom systems) and surging demand for general-purpose servers in computing and storage workloads, white-label server suppliers captured the majority of server shipments.