Global Data Center Spending to Hit $31.6 Trillion by 2050

Global spending on data centers is projected to reach $31.6 trillion by 2050 to meet the world's growing demand for artificial intelligence, an investment boom that a new report says is unprecedented in history and dwarfs the capital required for railways, electrification, and the internet. The forecast, released Wednesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers, indicates that if AI adoption accelerates beyond the firm's central scenario, cumulative spending could even hit $50 trillion over the next 25 years. The report, PwC's inaugural Global Data Center Outlook, was modeled by Oxford Economics and covers 46 countries and territories. It highlights that the scale of investment is driven by consumers, companies, and governments increasingly using AI, prompting tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon, along with smaller providers, to rapidly build new computing facilities worldwide. The bulk of the spending will go into hardware, particularly from leading AI chipmakers like Nvidia. Unlike traditional infrastructure projects that front-loaded costs, the report notes that this cycle is defined by recurring upgrades.