Companies say AI adoption may cause shortages and increase reliance on providers for cloud, AI and data center capacity, new ISG research finds

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STAMFORD, Conn. -- (Business Wire)

Enterprises expect AI workloads to strain the capacity of internal and external data centers over the next two years, and they plan to significantly increase investments in dedicated AI infrastructure, according to a new research report from Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a global AI-focused technology research and advisory firm.

The ISG Market Lens™ 2026 Infrastructure Study, conducted in September and published today, examines how large enterprises are prioritizing infrastructure investments. It finds that a significant percentage of companies expect capacity constraints in the types of data center infrastructure essential for AI workloads through the end of 2028. Most notably, two-thirds of enterprises forecast moderate or major shortages of accelerated compute capacity, such as GPUs. At the same time, companies expect AI to be the biggest driver of IT infrastructure growth and a major reason to increase their reliance on managed service providers.

“Enterprises are putting their money where their future workloads are,” said Michael Dornan, ISG principal analyst and co-author of the report. “As AI plays a growing role in operations, companies fear falling short of the computing power, memory and storage they need to keep scaling up AI use cases. This is the biggest infrastructure challenge of the coming years.”

The global survey of 200 senior infrastructure decision-makers at large, mostly multinational enterprises in the Americas and Europe finds that these organizations spend approximately one-third of their IT budgets on infrastructure. AI cost and capacity was the most-cited top challenge of the next two years, named by 39 percent of respondents. Cost pressures, security requirements, cloud migration and the need for operational visibility, are also influencing how companies plan and manage infrastructure.

AI adoption is likely to increase the need for spending on several types of infrastructure, led by systems specifically for AI. The mean expected increase in spending on dedicated AI infrastructure between now and the end of 2028 is nearly 9 percent. Infrastructure security and resilience will see the second-fastest growth, at 6.5 percent, followed closely by public cloud and hosted infrastructure services. Investment in networks, data center facilities, infrastructure operations and other priorities is also expected to increase.

As enterprises carry out these changes, they will carefully source infrastructure and services to achieve the right operating model for resilience, cost control and expertise as well as capacity. In some areas, external providers will play a bigger role: A majority of enterprises expect to shift investment toward managed service providers (MSPs) for cloud and hosted infrastructure, dedicated AI infrastructure and data center facilities and colocation in the next two years. In other areas, such as infrastructure security and resilience, the trend is more balanced between in-house and external strategies.

Companies believe AI-enabled operations will improve infrastructure management in the next two years, especially for cost and resource optimization and security threat monitoring and response. However, a lack of operational visibility has prevented many organizations from successfully adopting AI in this area. Based on typical responses to the survey, only 52 percent of infrastructure in an average organization is visible through an integrated operational data and observability layer. To govern and scale AI-enabled operations, enterprises need access to more of the underlying data.

“AI has begun to reshape both infrastructure needs and the way organizations address them internally and through partnerships,” said Angela Kreiter, ISG principal analyst and co-author of the report. “Over the next two years, enterprises and providers will need to evaluate the technology and economics of infrastructure sourcing and operations.”

Additional information the ISG Market Lens Infrastructure report is available here.

About ISG

ISG (Nasdaq: III) is a global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm. A trusted partner to more than 900 clients, including 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is a long-time leader in technology and business services that is now at the forefront of leveraging AI to help organizations achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm, founded in 2006, is known for its proprietary market data and research, in-depth knowledge and governance of provider ecosystems, and the expertise of its 1,500 professionals worldwide working together to help clients maximize the value of their technology investments.

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Contacts:

Press Contacts:

Laura Hupprich, ISG
+1 203-517-3132
laura.hupprich@isg-one.com

Erik Arvidson, Matter Communications for ISG
+1 978-518-4542
isg@matternow.com

Source: Information Services Group, Inc.