Hyperscalers, vendors funding trillion dollar AI spree, but users will have to pay up long term

Software vendors and cloud providers are bearing the burden of the expected trillion-dollar increase in AI spending this year, as investment hits $2.52 trillion, according to Gartner.

The global tech analyst company predicts a 44 percent increase from last year's AI spending figure $1.76 trillion. This was revised up from a September estimate of $1.5 trillion.

We are getting to the point where we go from 'that was a great idea' to 'where's my revenue?'

That $2.52 trillion figure will nearly double again, to $4.7 trillion, by 2029, Gartner predicted. However, John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, told The Register that cloud hyperscalers and software vendors were likely to pick up the bulk of the bill in the short term – although enterprise IT may have to pay in the long term.

Users were also likely to employ enterprise software vendors' AI agents ...