Dell’Oro Group reports data center capex rose 59% in 3Q 2025

Worldwide data center capital expenditures rose 59% year over year in 3Q 2025, reflecting broader Artificial Intelligence (AI) and infrastructure spending; this affects enterprise IT planning for server procurement, capacity expansion, and budgeting.

Market Overview

Data center Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) increased 59% year over year in the quarter, marking the eighth consecutive quarter of double‑digit growth. The analyst report attributes the rise to an AI investment cycle that has broadened beyond early, training‑focused deployments.

Key Findings

“The Top 4 US cloud service providers—Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft—continue to raise data center capex expectations for 2025, supported by increased investments in both AI and general-purpose infrastructure. Oracle is also on track to double its data center capex this year as it expands capacity for the Stargate project,” said Baron Fung, Senior Research Director at Dell’Oro Group.

Accelerated server spending surged in the quarter, driven by the ramp of NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra and custom accelerator platforms across US hyperscalers, neo cloud providers, and sovereign AI deployments. The report also notes cloud service providers are increasing emphasis on greater CAPEX discipline by optimizing asset depreciation and lifecycles to ensure healthy cash flow.

Segment or Supplier Performance

Dell led all server OEMs in revenue, followed by HPE and Lenovo, with share gains tied to strong NVIDIA Blackwell shipments and an updated x86 portfolio. White‑box vendors captured the majority of server shipments, supported by hyperscale AI deployments and elevated general‑purpose server demand.

Technology or Trend Analysis

Demand for general‑purpose servers strengthened as cloud providers expanded compute and storage capacity to support growing cloud services and inference‑heavy AI workloads.

Forecast or Analyst Outlook

The global data center CAPEX growth outlook was raised through 2026, reflecting sustained hyperscale investment and continued prioritization of AI infrastructure.

Methodology Notes

The Data Center IT CAPEX Quarterly Report details infrastructure CAPEX for the ten largest cloud service providers, Rest‑of‑Cloud, telco, and enterprise segments. It provides allocation of CAPEX across general‑purpose and accelerated servers, storage systems, and other auxiliary equipment, and discusses market drivers and the next‑year outlook.

The report synthesizes a broad uptick in cloud provider spending across accelerated compute, general‑purpose servers, and supporting data center infrastructure and highlights implications for procurement and capacity planning. This Analyst Signals brief reflects a neutral, fact-based summary of the original research note.