Hyperscalers fuel $112B server spending spree in Q3
Hyperscalers fuel $112B server spending spree in Q3
Story by Carly Page • 48m
IDC's latest tracker numbers were brought to you by the letters A and I
The global server market went into overdrive in the third quarter of 2025, racking up a record $112.4 billion in revenue as AI demand pushed vendor sales up 61 percent year-on-year, according to the latest figures from IDC.…
The surge marks another quarter of unusually high, double-digit growth for a market that was once defined by cautious refresh cycles, with IDC pointing squarely at accelerated infrastructure as the main culprit. Revenue from x86 servers climbed 32.8 percent year-over-year to $76.3 billion, but it was non-x86 systems that stole the show, jumping a staggering 192.7 percent to $36.2 billion as hyperscalers and cloud providers piled into alternative architectures optimized for AI workloads.
Servers with embedded GPUs now account for more than half of the server market's revenue, growing 49.4 percent year-on-year in the quarter. IDC said the pace of adoption among hyperscalers and cloud service providers has helped fuel a market that has nearly doubled in size compared with 2024, reaching $314.2 billion in revenue across the first three quarters of 2025 alone.
"IDC expects AI adoption to keep growing at an outstanding pace as major vendors continue reporting record orders and showing strong backlogs," said Juan Seminara, research director for IDC's Worldwide Enterprise Infrastructure Trackers. He added that hyperscalers remain out in front with large-scale deployments requiring much higher compute density, while major AI-focused research and education projects are beginning to add further momentum.
Regionally, the US led the charge, with server revenue climbing 79.1 percent year-on-year, driven by a 105.5 percent jump in accelerated server sales. Canada followed with 69.8 percent growth, while China posted a 37.6 percent increase and accounted for nearly a fifth of worldwide quarterly server revenue. Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan and China), EMEA, and Japan all delivered solid double-digit growth, at 37.4 percent, 31.0 percent, and 28.1 percent respectively. Latin America lagged behind with a 4.1 percent increase.
Dell was the clear leader among OEMs with an 8.3 percent revenue share, fueled by strong growth in accelerated servers. Supermicro took second place with a 4 percent share, despite revenue declining 13.2 percent year-on-year, while IEIT Systems and Lenovo were statistically tied for third at 3.7 percent and 3.6 percent respectively. HPE rounded out the top five with a 3 percent share.
While server spending continues to skyrocket, IDC's companion numbers for enterprise storage paint a more restrained picture. The worldwide external enterprise storage systems market grew just 2.1 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, reaching $8 billion in vendor revenue – respectable growth for a mature market, but a world away from the server boom being driven by AI infrastructure investments.
Beneath that modest headline figure, the shift toward flash is clear. Revenue from all-flash arrays grew 17.6 percent year-on-year, while hybrid flash arrays and hard disk-based systems declined 9.8 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. IDC said that the growth of AI-infused applications and models inside corporate datacenters is expected to increase demand for more efficient enterprise storage, particularly flash systems used for both training and inference workloads.
Mid-range storage systems, priced between $25,000 and $250,000, were the fastest growing segment, up 8.1 percent and now accounting for more than two-thirds of the external storage market. High-end systems priced above $250,000 fell 9 percent, while entry-level systems dropped 8 percent.
Storage growth varied sharply by region. Japan, Canada, and EMEA all posted double-digit gains, while China and Asia-Pacific delivered single-digit growth. The US, however, stood out for the wrong reasons, recording a 9.9 percent year-over-year decline in external storage revenue following what IDC described as a weak quarter for OEMs.
Dell remained the largest external storage supplier, with a 22.7 percent revenue share, despite a single-digit decline, followed by Huawei at 12 percent, on the back of strong performance in China. NetApp, Pure Storage, and HPE completed the top five, with Pure posting double-digit growth during the quarter.
IDC's numbers underline a widening divide in datacenter spending: AI-hungry servers are soaking up capital at a historic pace, while enterprise storage inches forward more cautiously. ® |
