Gartner: Thai IT spending gain expected to lag global rate
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Gartner: Thai IT spending gain expected to lag global rate

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Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $5.61 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.8% from 2024, according to Gartner.
Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $5.61 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.8% from 2024, according to Gartner.

Thailand's IT spending is expected to grow at slower rate than global growth, registering nearly 1 trillion baht in 2025, driven by investment in data centres.

According to the latest forecast by Gartner Inc, IT spending in Thailand is projected to reach almost 996 billion baht in 2025, up 7.9% year-on-year.

Spending on data centres should expand almost 17% this year, followed by software at 16.1%, noted Gartner.

Worldwide IT spending is expected to total US$5.61 trillion in 2025, a gain of 9.8% from 2024, said the forecaster.

Data centres are projected to have the highest global growth of 23.2% worth $406 billion.

"While budgets for chief information officers [CIOs] are increasing, a significant portion will merely offset price increases within their recurrent spending," said John-David Lovelock, distinguished vice-president analyst at Gartner.

"This means that, in 2025, nominal spending versus real IT spending will be skewed, with price hikes absorbing some or all of the budget growth. All major categories are reflecting higher-than-expected prices, prompting CIOs to defer and scale back their true budget expectations."

Segments including data centre systems, devices and software will see double-digit growth in 2025, largely due to generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) hardware upgrades.

However, these upgraded segments will not differentiate themselves in terms of functionality yet, even with new hardware.

Gartner: Thai IT spending gain expected to lag global rate

"GenAI is sliding toward the trough of disillusionment which reflects CIOs declining expectations for GenAI, but not their spending on this technology," said Mr Lovelock.

"For instance, the new AI-ready PCs do not yet have 'must have' apps that utilise the hardware. While both consumers and enterprises will purchase AI-enabled PCs, tablets and mobile phones, those purchases will not be overly influenced by GenAI functionality."

Spending on AI-optimised servers will easily double spending on traditional servers in 2025, reaching $202 billion.

"IT service companies and hyperscalers should account for more than 70% of spending in 2025," he said.

"By 2028, hyperscalers will operate $1-trillion worth of AI-optimised servers, but not within their traditional business model or infrastructure-as-a-service market. Hyperscalers are pivoting to be part of the oligopoly AI model market."

In a related development, the Board of Investment (BoI) reported TikTok Pte Ltd, the Singapore-based unit of the Chinese company, received approval for an investment of 127 billion baht for data hosting services to support the activities of affiliated companies, with operations expected to start in 2026. TikTok has more than 1 billion users around the world.

The BoI also approved an investment of 3.25 billion baht by Siam AI Corporation, a Thai company, in cloud services focusing on AI applications.

"TikTok's and Siam AI's investments mark a significant step in enhancing Thailand's digital and AI infrastructure and supporting the national goal of becoming a digital innovation hub in Southeast Asia," said Narit Therdsteerasukdi, secretary-general of the BoI.

TikTok's investment follows the setup in Thailand of a string of large data centres and cloud services projects by companies such as Amazon Web Services and Google (Alphabet) from the US, Australia's NextDC, India's CtrlS Datacenters, and Singapore-based GDS IDC Services Pte Ltd.

Thailand's total applications for investment promotion in 2024 soared 35% in value to a 10-year high of 1.14 trillion baht, led by the digital sector, mainly from large foreign direct investment projects in data centres and cloud services.

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