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IT spending in 2019 revised down amid data center woes

Gartner said currency fluctuations will ding global IT spending, but the data center market will contract.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Data center 2019 spending will fall 2.8 percent, but the declines won't be enough to offset growth in the global IT sector, according to Gartner.

Gartner projects that global IT spending will be $3.79 trillion, up 1.1 percent from a year ago. In January, Gartner projected 2019 spending growth of 3.2 percent

The research firm said a strengthening US dollar and currency fluctuations caused the lower projections.

As for the declines in data center spending, Gartner said lower average selling prices for servers is driving the market down. In addition, IT spending is shifting to the cloud. Cloud is driving enterprise software spending, which is projected to be up 7.1 percent in 2019. Gartner added that infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service spending will also continue to grow.

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All that as-a-service spending will continue to eat into data center spending. Data centers: The future is software-defined

Another wrinkle in IT spending will be artificial intelligence technologies, but Gartner noted the impact is unclear. Enterprise AI in 2019: What you need to know

Gartner analyst John-David Lovelock said:

AI is having a major effect on IT spending, although its role is often misunderstood. AI is not a product, it is really a set of techniques or a computer engineering discipline. As such, AI is being embedded in many existing products and services, as well as being central to new development efforts in every industry.

Related:

What's next for data centers? Think micro data centers 

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