Government's IT spending to rise 12.1% to $9.5 billion this year, says Gartner

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The Indian government's information technology spending is expected to reach $9.5 billion in 2022, up 12.1 percent from last year. This year, the software segment will continue to grow at the fastest rate in India, followed by IT services, a report by Gartner has stated.

"Contrary to the worldwide spending, all segments will experience growth in 2022 in India," said Apeksha Kaushik, principal analyst at Gartner.

Governments are now implementing innovative operations by leveraging technology to streamline digital services, automate procedures, improve citizen experiences, and create a data fabric. In 2022, global government IT spending is expected to reach $565.7 billion, up 5 percent over the previous year. In 2022, software is expected to continue to grow at the fastest rate across all segments, as it did in 2021, according to the report.

As government entities continue to prioritise legacy modernisation, growth in the data centre systems market will decelerate during the projected period, stated the report.

“Governments are executing innovative activities by harnessing technology to streamline digital services, advance automation processes and evolve citizen experiences," said Daniel Snyder, director analyst at Gartner.

Governments are expected to cut spending on expensive legacy systems in favour of digital service delivery models in 2022, resulting in a fall in telecom investment. Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is gaining traction in government because it gives a higher return on investment by normalising IT spending across time and making IT budgeting more predictable.

“The pandemic sped up public-sector adoption of cloud solutions and the XaaS model for accelerated legacy modernisation and new service implementations," said Kaushik.

With companies' facing continuous talent difficulties, XaaS makes it easier for government agencies to discover the right personnel through XaaS operating models.