Dell’Oro Group reports data center capital expenditures surged 57 percent in 2025

Worldwide data center capital expenditures increased by 57 percent in 2025, driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) deployments and infrastructure investments, positioning hyperscalers and AI model developers to maintain Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) momentum in 2026.

Market Overview

The top four U.S. cloud service providers—Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft—increased data center CAPEX by 76 percent in 2025. Oracle more than tripled its data center CAPEX to support its Stargate project, reflecting broader industry investment trends.

Key Findings

Growth was supported by AI infrastructure build-outs and investments in general-purpose servers and storage for AI and cloud workloads. The forecast for 2026 data center CAPEX exceeds $1 trillion, with over 10 million high-end accelerators identified as primary drivers alongside related infrastructure.

Most AI-related investments primarily support hyperscalers' internal frontier models, with increasing investments targeting AI model developers. While training workloads currently dominate, inferencing is expected to become a larger CAPEX driver as reasoning models expand. Hyperscalers are implementing measures to mitigate risks of potential AI infrastructure overcapacity and optimize costs.

Segment or Supplier Performance

Dell led all original equipment manufacturers in AI-optimized server revenue in 2025, followed by Supermicro, supported by strong NVIDIA Blackwell shipments. White-box vendors accounted for the majority of server shipments, facilitated by hyperscale AI deployments for Blackwell and custom systems, along with increased demand for general-purpose servers used in compute and storage workloads.

Forecast or Analyst Outlook

The global data center CAPEX growth is projected to increase by more than 50 percent in 2026. General-purpose server average selling prices are expected to rise by high double digits, primarily driven by escalating prices for DRAM and storage components.

Conclusion

The report highlights rising investments in data center infrastructure mainly driven by AI deployments and general-purpose upgrades, with hyperscalers playing a central role in sustaining CAPEX growth. This trend illustrates the ongoing expansion of AI and cloud workloads impacting supplier revenues and market pricing in 2026. This Analyst Signals brief reflects a neutral, fact-based summary of the original research note.