EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This Intersect360 Research report presents the 2024 total market size and five-year forecast for the worldwide market for data center infrastructure, segmented into accelerated, parallel computing segments (the “AI market”) and non-accelerated segments. The AI-focused accelerated computing portion is segmented into five categories: hyperscale AI, AI-focused cloud service providers, national sovereign AI data centers, HPC-AI (non-cloud), and enterprise AI (non-HPC, non-cloud). Two additional non-accelerated segments—hyperscale and enterprise—complete the forecast. Market sizing is given in U.S. dollars for 2023 and 2024, with a five-year forecast horizon through 2029 and compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) using 2024 as a base
The total worldwide market for data center infrastructure grew by 32% in 2024, swelling to $383.6 billion. This growth was driven entirely by accelerated, parallel computing segments, which is effectively the “AI market” for data center computing. These high-performance, scalable segments soared, more than doubling year-over-year, up 121% to $192.7 billion. Spending in the non-accelerated segments was down 6%, to $190.9 billion. Thanks to the AI boom, accelerated, parallel computing now represents over half of data center spending worldwide.
The majority of the growth by volume again came from the hyperscale AI segment. Hyperscale companies now account for approximately three out of every five dollars of data center infrastructure spending, in both accelerated and non-accelerated computing segments. Two emerging accelerated data center segments, AI- focused clouds and national sovereign AI data centers, had even higher year-over-year growth rates, though from smaller bases.
The HPC-AI and enterprise AI segments are those that were tracked by Intersect360 Research as the merged non-hyperscale HPC-AI market in prior years. Even with seemingly strong growth in 2024, HPC-AI and enterprise AI are declining as a percentage of the total AI market boom.
This trend gets exacerbated in the five-year forecast. Over the course of the forecast period, the total global market for data center infrastructure will grow at a 9.7% CAGR, reaching $610.8 billion in 2029. As with 2024, this growth will be fueled entirely by accelerated computing associated with AI.
The race to AI dominance is now fully engaged. The early pacesetters were the hyperscale companies, which leveraged their vast troves of data to revolutionize their offerings (and advertisements) to the billions of worldwide users of search, social media, entertainment, and e-commerce. Enterprise AI will be similarly transformed.
Government spending has been a traditional driver of HPC spending, on the presumption that dominance in supercomputing can be a matter of national security interests. This premise now applies to artificial intelligence. The trend of national sovereignty and technology independence in AI will only rise throughout the forecast period.
This report focuses on the total data center infrastructure market. As part of this market forecast report series, Intersect360 Research also releases detailed segmentation of the HPC-AI and enterprise AI segments of the market, including cloud computing spending that is excluded from this infrastructure forecast. Reports available in this series include the following segmentations of the HPC-AI and enterprise AI market:
• Products and Services: servers, storage, networks, software, service, cloud, other
• Vertical markets: academia, national security, national research labs, national agencies, state or local governments, bio sciences, chemical engineering, consumer product manufacturing, electronics, energy, financial services, large product manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, transportation, other (presented both with and without hyperscale as a vertical market)
• Regions: Americas, EMEA, Asia-Pacific
• Server class (HPC-AI server revenue): entry-level, midrange, high-end, supercomputer
The HPC-AI segment will suffer a dip in 2025, due to disruptions in national funding for academic institutions and certain national agencies in the U.S. Commercial use cases in the HPC-AI segment will see an increase in AI investments that are independent of HPC, effectively moving spending away from the HPC- AI segment into the enterprise AI segment. The HPC-AI segment will rebound to eventual stability, but HPC will continue to represent a shrinking portion of the dynamic AI market. The national laboratories and academic research centers that have dominated the past supercomputing landscape will be of diminished importance in the context of global AI. For further analysis of the HPC-AI and enterprise AI segments, including the use of cloud computing for HPC and AI, please see the additional forecast segmentation reports in this report series.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary – 2
Table of Contents – 4
Introduction – 5
The “AI Market”: Accelerated, Parallel Computing – 5
Segment Definitions – 6
What Are HPC, AI, and Hyperscale? – 8
Data Center Infrastructure: Accelerated and Non-Accelerated – 10
Table 1: Data Center Infrastructure Segments, Accelerated and Non-Accelerated ($B), 2024 vs. 2023 – 10
Figure 1: Data Center Infrastructure Segments, Accelerated and Non-Accelerated ($B), 2024 vs. 2023 – 11
Table 2: Data Center Infrastructure Segments, Accelerated and Non-Accelerated ($B), 2023-24 Actual, 2025-29 Forecast- 12
Figure 2: Data Center Infrastructure Segments, Accelerated and Non-Accelerated ($B), 2023-24 Actual, 2025-29 Forecast – 13
Conclusions – 14
Appendix A: Methodology – 17
Appendix B: HPC, AI, and Hyperscale: Definitions and Interdynamics – 19
What are Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning? – 19
What is HPC? – 21
What is Hyperscale? – 21
What Makes Hyperscale “Hyper”? – 22
Hyperscale and Business Computing – 23
Hyperscale and HPC – 23
How Hyperscale is Unique – 25