Arm Holdings NASDAQ:ARM gained another sign of momentum in the AI race after IDC reported that Arm-based rack-scale GPU servers have overtaken x86 systems as the leading accelerated computing platform.
IDC said global AI infrastructure spending reached $89.7 billion in the first quarter and now expects the market to hit $497 billion in 2026, up nearly 56% from a year earlier. The research firm also forecasts AI infrastructure spending will exceed $1 trillion by 2029.
Arm licenses processor designs used across smartphones, data centers and AI servers, while x86 chips are primarily supplied by Intel NASDAQ:INTC and AMD NASDAQ:AMD. IDC said Arm accelerated server spending climbed to $53 billion in the first quarter, while x86 accelerated server spending fell to $34.6 billion as hyperscalers increasingly adopted Nvidia's NASDAQ:NVDA rack-scale AI systems.
The report also found that enterprises are expanding beyond GPU purchases into CPU-only inference clusters, AI orchestration software and long-delayed storage upgrades, signaling a broader buildout of AI infrastructure.