New technologies will drive information and communications technology (ICT) spending to more than $6 trillion by 2022, says IDC.
New categories such as drones, sensors, augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), and 3D printers will account for an increasing share of the market.
China has emerged as the world’s largest market for spending on the Internet of Things (IoT), AR/VR, and robotics.
China will account for nearly 40 percent of worldwide robotics spending by 2022 with almost $80 billion in annual expenditures and already accounts for more than a quarter of global spending on IoT and AR/VR.
US continues to dominate spending on software-driven markets and currently accounts for almost 70 percent of total spending on artificial intelligence (AI) and more than 50 percent of big data & analytics (BDA).
US annual spending on AI will grow to nearly $50 billion by 2022, while annual BDA investments will reach $140 billion.
US accounted for 54 percent of all cloud-related ICT spending worldwide at $145 billion in 2017. This included $70 billion in spending on cloud software, $35 billion on cloud-related IT services, and $10 billion on infrastructure as a service.
The US accounted for almost 70 percent of worldwide cloud software spending, while China accounted for 1.5 percent.
There is a clear divergence between the U.S. and China when it comes to current strengths and leadership in ICT adoption.
The U.S. continues to achieve broad-based economic benefits from aggressive investments in software, while China’s focus so far has been on a more narrow segment of economic growth and ICT enablement, including adoption of operational technology in IoT and robotics related to manufacturing use cases.
IDC expects any escalation in the trade war will be a drag on traditional technologies in the first half of 2019. Spending on new categories would likely begin to slow by 2020 if businesses are forced to reassess their budgets.
India is showing strong growth in spending on cloud-related deployments with annual growth of more than 30 percent expected throughout the next five years (almost double the worldwide average).
