Global investment in artificial intelligence will exceed 600 billion dollars by 2028

According to forecasts by the consulting firm IDC, global investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to reach 632 billion dollars by 2028, more than double the current level. This exponential growth, expected to grow at an annual rate of 29% between 2024 and 2028, will primarily be driven by spending on AI-specific applications, infrastructure, and business and IT services related to this technology.

The software sector will account for most AI investments during this period. More than half of the spending will be in this area, with AI applications and platforms taking up two-thirds of the budget. The remaining funds will be used to develop and use AI applications and software for AI system infrastructures. IDC estimates that the annual growth rate for AI software will reach 33.9% by 2028.

Hardware will be the second largest category of AI spending. This sector includes servers, storage, and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). In third place are business and IT services with AI, for which annual investment growth of 24.3% is expected.

Although generative AI has attracted considerable attention in recent months, future investments will be lower compared to other AI applications such as machine learning, deep learning, automatic speech recognition, and natural language processing. However, spending on generative AI will grow rapidly, with a projected growth rate of 59.2% over the next five years. By 2029, investments in generative AI are expected to reach 202 billion dollars, which corresponds to 32% of total AI spending.

Broken down by sector, the financial industry will lead AI investment, with banking topping the list with more than 20% of total AI spending between 2024 and 2028. Other prominent sectors include information services and retail, which, together with the financial sector, will account for almost 45% of total AI investment over the next five years. In addition, the business and personal services, transportation, and leisure sectors will record the highest investment growth rates at 32.8% and 31.7%,, respectively.