Dell’Oro: 2H2026 Data Center Capex to Accelerate due to massive AI Deployments
Dell’Oro Group has raised its worldwide data center capex outlook for 2026 as hyperscale AI deployments accelerated, complemented by continued investments in general-purpose infrastructure and rising component costs.
“Rising memory and storage pricing substantially increased overall server system costs in the quarter and will likely remain a major capex growth factor this year,” said Baron Fung, Senior Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “At the same time, AI infrastructure deployments continue to accelerate rapidly, while hyperscalers also expanded general-purpose infrastructure to support public cloud growth, agentic AI workloads, and rising AI-related storage requirements.
“Despite exceptionally strong spending growth in 1H2026, capex growth is expected to accelerate further in 2H26, driven by the ramp of NVIDIA Rubin systems and refresh cycles for hyperscaler custom accelerator platforms. Beyond hyperscalers, select enterprise verticals and sovereign cloud providers are increasing AI infrastructure adoption, though growth remains constrained by uncertain returns and infrastructure readiness. While near-term demand remains healthy, some spending may have been pulled forward ahead of expected price increases later this year,” explained Fung.
Additional highlights from the 1Q 2026 Data Center IT Capex Quarterly Report:
- The global data center capex outlook was raised to more than $1 trillion for 2026.
- The Top 4 U.S. cloud providers—Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft—increased data center capex by 78%.
- Dell led server OEM revenue in the quarter, followed by SuperMicro and Lenovo, while white-box vendors serving the hyperscale market accounted for the majority of server revenue. Nearly all server vendors benefited from higher memory-driven system pricing.
Image Credit: Futurum Group
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Dell’Oro Group’s Data Center IT Capex Quarterly Report details the data center infrastructure capital expenditures of each of the ten largest Cloud service providers, as well as the Rest-of-Cloud, Telco, and Enterprise customer segments. Allocation of the data center infrastructure capex for general-purpose and accelerated servers, storage systems, and other auxiliary data center equipment is provided. The report also discusses market trends, drivers of the leading Cloud service providers’ capex growth during the quarter, and the outlook for the next year. To purchase this report, please contact us at [email protected].
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Perplexity.ai generated- June 2026 forecast:
Approximately 75% of hyperscaler capex in 2026 is for AI infrastructure (~$450 billion).
Key Drivers of the Forecast Increase:
Additional Secondary Factors:
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NVIDIA Rubin system ramp: Capex growth expected to accelerate further in 2H26 driven by Rubin system ramp
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Hyperscaler custom accelerator refresh cycles: Refresh cycles for custom accelerator platforms will drive 2H26 growth
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Enterprise verticals & sovereign cloud adoption: Select enterprise verticals and sovereign cloud providers increasing AI infrastructure adoption
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Pulled-forward spending: Some spending pulled forward ahead of expected price increases later in 2026
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References:
https://futurumgroup.com/insights/ai-capex-2026-the-690b-infrastructure-sprint/
https://know.creditsights.com/insights/technology-hyperscaler-capex-2026-estimates/
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