Gartner: Canada is expected to spend $88.7 billion on IT in 2019

Canadian IT spending is expected to reach $88.7 billion in 2019, up 1.1% from a year earlier, according to Gartner's latest projections.That's down from 3.5 percent growth in 2018.Global IT spending is expected to grow 1.1 per cent to $3.79tn in 2019.

"The uncertain economic and political environment and trade wars are slowing growth in Canadian IT spending in 2019," said john-david Lovelock, Gartner's vice President of research.Specifically, steel and aluminium tariffs, uncertainty over car manufacturing, continuing problems in the country's oil industry and indecision over the forthcoming trade deal to replace NAFTA have all affected it spending.By 2020, some of the uncertainty is expected to be resolved and Canadian IT spending is expected to increase."

While Canadian companies' digital transformation is not as widespread as their global counterparts, their use of cloud services is second only to that of the United States.Gartner also expects growth in the infrastructure software sector to accelerate during the forecast period.

Lovelock added: "cios' choices about technology investments are crucial to the success of digital businesses.Disruptive emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, will reshape business models as well as public and private economic models.For example, there has been a huge increase in ai investment since 2018, and ai will have a significant impact on IT spending.According to Gartner's 2019 CIO agenda survey, 24% of Canadian cios plan to increase their investment in AI.In addition, Gartner's ai business value estimates that Canadian companies will reap $36 billion in benefits from the use of ai this year alone."