Gartner warns AI infrastructure spending may outpace revenue returns

Consulting and advisory firm Gartner has raised concerns that revenue from AI services will not be sufficient to make all planned investments profitable. AI companies are expected to invest nearly 1 trillion dollars in infrastructure during 2026, with an additional 6 trillion dollars planned between 2027 and 2030. To cover investments and costs and achieve a 12 percent return, data center owners would need to generate a total of 8.5 trillion dollars in revenue by 2030. Currently, Gartner estimates that the most successful players may only reach 3.6 trillion dollars.

Smaller cloud providers known as neoclouds, which specialize in AI computing capacity, are particularly at risk. Over 80 percent of these specialized cloud providers could cease to operate as independent businesses before 2030 due to lack of profitability. If investment rates continue, Gartner projects that assets worth over 4 trillion dollars may face write-down risks by 2032.