CIOs Will Underestimate AI Infrastructure Costs By 30%
CIO, December 11,2025
The unpredictable nature of AI consumption and pricing, along with massive investments from vendors, will lead to an 'infrastructure reckoning' in the coming years, IDC says.
Large enterprises will significantly miscalculate their AI infrastructure costs over the next couple of years, prompting more CIOs to expand the scope of their FinOps teams, IDC predicts.
Enterprise AI users are headed for an 'AI infrastructure reckoning,' as CIOs and finance leaders realize that standard budget forecasting doesn't work for compute-heavy AI projects, says Jevin Jensen, IDC's vice president of infrastructure and operations research. Global 1,000 companies will underestimate their AI infrastructure costs by 30% through 2027, IDC predicts.