Google Cloud Cements Values of Enterprise Readiness, Full-stack AI and Hybrid Cloud at Next 2025

In April Google Cloud hosted its annual Next event to showcase new innovations in AI. Staying true to the theme of “A New Way to Cloud,” Google focused on AI, including how AI can integrate with enterprises’ existing tech landscape, with partners playing the role of orchestrator. After Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke about the company’s achievements around Gemini, which is integral to Google Cloud’s strategy, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian highlighted the business’s three key attributes: optimized for AI; open and multicloud; and enterprise-ready. Additionally, Google Cloud announced a series of new innovations that highlight how the company is trying to execute on these three areas to be the leader in modern AI development.

Google takes an end-to-end approach to AI

When discussing Google Cloud’s three key attributes, Kurian first highlighted how Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is optimized for AI. Based on our own conversations with IT decision makers, this claim is valid: many customers enlist GCP services purely for functional purposes, as they believe they cannot obtain the same performance with another vendor. This is particularly true of BigQuery, for large-scale data processing and analytics, and increasingly Vertex AI, which now supports over 200 curated foundation models for developers.
 
Within this set of models is, of course, Gemini, Google’s own suite of models, including the new Gemini 2.5 Pro, which has a context window of 1 million tokens and is reportedly now capable of handling advanced reasoning. To be fair, Google still faces stiff competition from other frontier model providers, but Google’s years of AI research through DeepMind and its ability to have models grounded in popular apps like Google Maps, not to mention Google Search, will remain among its key differentiators.
 
With that said, the AI software stack is only as effective as the hardware it runs on. That is why Google has been making some advances in its own custom AI accelerators, and at the event, Google reaffirmed its plans to invest $75 billion in total capex for 2025, despite the current macroeconomic challenges. A large piece of this investment will likely focus on paying for the ramp-up of Google’s sixth-generation TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) — Trillium — which became generally available to Google Cloud customers in December. Additionally, Google is making some big bets on the next wave of AI usage: inference.
 
At the event, Google introduced its seventh-generation TPU, dubbed Ironwood, which reportedly scales up to 9,216 liquid cooling chips linked through a high-powered networking layer, to support the compute-intensive requirements of inference workloads, including proactive AI agents. In 2024 there was a 3x increase in the number of collective TPU and GPU hours consumed by GCP customers, and while this was likely off a small number of hours to begin with, it is clear that customers’ needs and expectations around AI are increasing. These investments in AI hardware help round out key areas of Google’s AI portfolio ― beyond just the developer tools and proprietary Gemini models ― as part of a cohesive, end-to-end approach.
 

Watch now: Cloud market growth will slow in 2025, but will activity follow? Deep dive into generative AI’s impact on the cloud market in 2025 in the below TBR Insights Live session

 

Recognizing the rise of AI inference, Google Cloud reinforces longtime company values of openness and hybrid cloud

With its ties to Kubernetes and multicloud editions of key services like BigQuery and AlloyDB, Google Cloud has long positioned itself as a more open cloud compared to its competitors. However, in recent quarters, the company has seemed to hone this focus more closely, particularly with GDC (Google Distributed Cloud), which is essentially a manifestation of Anthos, Google’s Kubernetes-based control plane that can run in any environment, including at the edge. GDC has been the source of some big wins recently for Google Cloud, including with McDonald’s, which is deploying GDC to thousands of restaurant locations, as well as several international governments running GDC as air-gapped deployments.
 
At Next 2025, Google announced it is making Gemini available on GDC as part of a vision to bring AI to environments outside the central cloud. In our view, this announcement is extremely telling of Google Cloud’s plans to capture the inference opportunity. Per our best estimate, roughly 85% of AI’s usage right now is focused on training, with just 15% in inference, but the inverse could be true in the not-too-distant future. Not only that, but inference will also likely happen in distributed locations for purposes of latency and scale. Letting customers take advantage of Gemini to build applications on GDC — powered by NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs — on premises or at the edge certainly aligns with market trends and will help Google Cloud ensure its services play a role in customers’ AI inference workloads regardless of where they are run.

Boosting enterprise mindshare with security, interoperability and Google-quality search

Kurian mentioned that customers leverage Google Cloud because it is enterprise-ready. In our research, we have found that while Google Cloud is highly compelling for AI and analytics workloads, customers believe the company lacks enterprise-grade capabilities, particularly when compared to Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS). But we believe this perception is changing, and Google Cloud is recognizing that to gain mindshare in the enterprise space, it needs to lead with assets that will work well with customers’ existing IT estates and do so in a secure way. This is why the pending acquisition of Wiz is so important. As highlighted in a recent TBR special report, core Wiz attributes include not only being born in the cloud and able to handle security in a modern way but also connecting to all the leading hyperscalers, as well as legacy infrastructure, such as VMware.
 
Google Cloud has been very clear that it will not disrupt the company’s multihybrid capability. In fact, Google Cloud wants to integrate this value proposition, which suggests Google recognizes its place in the cloud market and the fragmented reality of large enterprises’ IT estates. Onboarding Wiz, which is used by roughly half of the Fortune 500, as a hybrid-multicloud solution could play a sizable role in helping Google Cloud assert itself in more enterprise scenarios. In the meantime, Google Cloud is taking steps to unify disparate assets in the security portfolio.
 
At Next 2025, Google Cloud launched Google Unified Security, which effectively brings Google Threat Intelligence, Security Operations, Security Command Center, Chrome Enterprise and Mandiant into a single platform. By delivering more integrated product experiences, Google helps address clients’ growing preference for “one hand to shake” when it comes to security and lays a more robust foundation for security agents powered by Gemini, such as the alert triage agent within Google Security Operations and the malware analysis agent in Google Threat Intelligence to help determine if code is safe or harmful.
 
One of the other compelling aspects of Google’s enterprise strategy is Agentspace. Launched last year, Agentspace acts as a hub for AI agents that uses Gemini’s multimodal search capabilities to pull information from different storage applications (e.g., Google Drive, Box, SharePoint) and automate common productivity tasks like crafting emails and scheduling meetings. At the event, Google announced that Agentspace is integrated with Chrome, allowing Agentspace users to ask questions about their existing data directly through a search in Chrome. This is another clear example of where Google’s search capabilities come into play and is telling of how Google plans to use Agentspace to democratize agentic AI within the enterprise.

Training and more sales alignment are at the forefront of Google Cloud’s partner priorities

Google Cloud has long maintained a partner-first approach. Attaching partner services on virtually all deals; taking an industry-first approach to AI, particularly in retail and healthcare; and driving more ISV coselling via the Google Cloud Marketplace are a few examples. At Next 2025, Google continued to reaffirm its commitment to partners, implying there will be more alignment between field sales and partners, to ensure customers are matched with the right ISV or global systems integrator (GSI), a strategy many other cloud providers have tried to employ.
 
When it comes to the crucial aspect of training, partners clearly see the role Google Cloud plays in AI, and some of the company’s largest services partners, including Accenture, Cognizant, Capgemini, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, McKinsey & Co., Kyndryl and HCLTech, have collectively committed to training 200,000 individuals on Google Cloud’s AI technology. Google has invested $100 million in partner training over the past four years, and as highlighted in TBR’s Voice of the Partner research, one of the leading criteria services vendors look for in a cloud partner is the willingness to invest in training and developing certified resources.

Google Cloud wants partners to be the AI agent orchestrators

As previously mentioned, Vertex AI is a key component of Google Cloud’s AI software stack. At Next 2025, Google Cloud introduced a new feature in Vertex called the Agent Development Kit, which is an open-source framework for building multistep agents. Google Cloud is taking steps to ensure these agents can be seamlessly connected regardless of the underlying framework, such as launching Agent2Agent (A2A), which is an open protocol, similar to protocols introduced by model providers like Anthropic.
 
Nearly all of the previously mentioned GSIs, in addition to Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro, have contributed to the protocol and will be supporting implementations. This broad participation underscores the recognition that AI agents will have a substantial impact on the ecosystem.
 
New use cases will continue to emerge where agents are interacting with one another, not only internally but also across third-party systems and vendors. With the launch of the Agent Development Kit and the related protocol, Google Cloud seems to recognize where agentic AI is headed, and for Google Cloud’s alliance partners, this is an opportune time to ensure they have a solid understanding of multiparty alliance structures and are positioned to scale beyond one-to-one partnerships.

Final thoughts

At Next 2025, Google reportedly announced over 200 new innovations and features, but developments in high-powered compute, hybrid cloud and security, in addition to ongoing support for partners, are particularly telling of the company’s plans to capture more AI workloads within the large enterprise. Taking an end-to-end approach to AI, from custom accelerators to a diverse developer stack that will let customers build their own AI agents for autonomous work, is how Google Cloud aims to protect its already strong position in the market and help lead the shift toward AI inferencing.
 
At the same time, Google Cloud appears to recognize its No. 3 position in the cloud market, significantly lagging behind AWS and Microsoft, which are getting closer to each other in IaaS & PaaS revenue. As such, taking a more active stance on interoperability to ensure AI can work within a customer’s existing IT estate, and guaranteeing partners that have the enterprise relationships are the ones to orchestrate that AI, will help Google Cloud chart its path forward.

Trade Wars and the Professional Services Fallout: Talent, Growth and Operational Models in Flux

Significant market disruption likely in near and long term

Trade wars and tariff uncertainties conjure up visions of cargo ships, ports, factories and stacks of goods stranded by economic chaos, not consultants and IT services professionals. Fear, uncertainty and doubt are usually good for the consulting business, while the higher costs of running a business fuel demand for more outsourcing. This time, things might be different. This trade war, even if partially suspended for now, may significantly disrupt professional services, especially if tariffs continue creeping into new areas and the trust deficit continues to grow. Steel now, services later.
 
TBR believes three areas will likely experience added near-term stress if the trade war continues: acquisitions, sales cycles and staffing. Longer-term, more seismic changes may come to the H-1B visa program, regionalization efforts among the Big Four firms, and onshore/offshore talent models. Looming over all of these disruptions, at least at the moment, is the potential for a grand decoupling of the U.S. and China economies, with incomprehensible knock-on effects. Those near-term disruptions share a common denominator: macroeconomic uncertainty.
 
Making the business case for a significant acquisition becomes harder in a recession-fearing market. When clients extend sales cycles because they’re afraid to commit suddenly more precious resources to upgrades, modernizations or transformations, growth slows for consultancies and IT services companies. And when growth slows, so does hiring.
 
At its core, professional services is all about people. And when recruiting, rewarding and retaining people are pressured, everything is pressured. To understand how tariffs and trade wars could hurt consultancies and IT services companies, even in the short run, it is critical to step back and realize these professional services providers serve every industry. They may be in and of one industry themselves — professional services — but their clients span every industry that exists. When the steel, computer chip, automobile, bourbon and lumber industries get upended by tariffs, so do the consultancies and IT services companies serving them.
 

In 2025 IT services companies and consultancies will refine their alliances, articulate a clear joint value proposition, and align at both the leadership and salesforce levels. The most successful IT services companies and consultancies will be the ones that partner best. Learn more in TBR’s 2025 Ecosystems & Alliances Predictions special report.


 

Local and regional talent may be key to revenue growth

Powering through the near-term challenges, IT services companies and consultancies may then face structural changes to their operating environment, many centered on talent, starting with a reevaluation of the onshore/offshore mix. India-centric companies, which have historically relied on H-1B visas (at least to some degree; TBR appreciates that their reliance has varied widely), may find a less accommodating atmosphere in the U.S. and possibly even an unwillingness by potential candidates to relocate to the U.S.
 
At the same time, the Big Four firms may slow down their regionalization efforts, as having highly country-specific capabilities and dedicated staff may become a greater asset than more explicitly globalized organizations. TBR believes the more extreme outcomes around H-1B visas remain unlikely, while staying cognizant that the current trade war and tariff uncertainty also seemed unlikely a year ago. TBR does believe one highly likely outcome of the current trade crisis is a reassessment — by all IT services companies and global consultancies — of the overall onshore/offshore model. The recent uptick in global captive centers in India may be indicative of an enterprise trend toward more tightly owned and controlled offshore resources, but that was already the norm among IT services companies and consultancies prior to the trade war threat.
 
If trade wars persist, local and regional talent may become the key to sustained revenue growth, tied to local and regional economic growth overall. In other words, whichever company has the most and the best people on the ground in the fastest-growing places will continue to grow the most rapidly. It seems like a good time for the Big Four to have every country member firm run its own show as the on-the-ground market conditions start becoming even more disparate.
 

Watch now: TBR Principal Analyst & Practice Manager Patrick M. Heffernan discusses trend expectations for GenAI in the Professional Services market in 2025

Tariffs on services could further complicate market landscape

Returning to the starting image, trade wars evoke cargo ships, not consultants, and so far the Trump administration has not included services on the various tariff schedules. The U.S. currently runs a services trade surplus, and tariffs on services (as well as software) for various countries would be insanely difficult to assess. Artificial intelligence and the application of generative AI (GenAI) to procurement could make tariffs on services more manageable, but any efficiencies gained through those efforts would potentially erode the low-cost arbitrage advantage enjoyed by IT services companies and technology providers, damaging the overall U.S. trade balance.
 
Further complicating this picture, advances in AI and automation could mean any manufacturing jobs created in the U.S. as a direct result of tariffs would be digital FTEs, benefiting technology companies but undermining the Trump administration’s stated goals. In all, a mess, even if services remain off the tariff schedule.

Companies pursue multiple strategies around U.S.-China decoupling

Another potential scenario: Some economic and consulting leaders have been advocating for a U.S.-China decoupling for a few years, a possibility that is more likely now as every day brings another parry in the U.S.-China trade war. Some global consultancies have been kicked out of China. Others have downgraded their offices or quietly left on their own. And some are maintaining an arm’s-length relationship, and some are doing business as usual. Fools would predict which strategies will win out. TBR simply notes that companies may pursue multiple strategies.
 
For example, in August 2024 IBM closed its China Development Lab and China Systems Lab, laying off more than 1,000 employees across Beijing, Shanghai and Dalian. The closure was part of IBM’s initiative to relocate R&D functions to India and other countries due to competition and geopolitical tensions. However, IBM remains committed to working with clients in the Greater China region. In March IBM launched an initiative to expand in enterprise AI, hybrid cloud and industry-specific consulting services to drive digital transformation and implement AI and cloud solutions in China. As part of this initiative, IBM is working with China-based Great Wall Motor Co. Ltd. on digital transformation and global expansion. A complete decoupling may be unlikely, but consultancies and IT services companies that have financial flexibility and leaders who are prepared to take risks and withstand uncertainty will likely continue to thrive.

TBR Announces On-demand Availability of 1Q25 TBR Insights Live Webinars

Technology Business Research, Inc. (TBR) is pleased to announce on-demand availability of all TBR Insights Live webinars that aired during 1Q25. Each session features TBR’s top experts discussing key trends, recent analysis and market dynamics across covered industries.
 
1Q25 webinars can be viewed on our YouTube channel, and presentation decks can be downloaded via the linked titles below.

Explore the full lineup of 1Q25 TBR Insights Live webinars

MWC25: Disruptive Technologies and Business Models Create New Opportunities for the Mobile Ecosystem

  • How the telecom industry intends to derive business outcomes from AI
  • How enterprises are progressing in their digital transformations and incorporating private networks
  • Where in the mobile ecosystem new value is being created and what telcos need to do to generate ROI from new opportunities

Ecosystem Intelligence for IT Services, Cloud and Consultancies: Strategic Insights for 2025 Success

  • How to place strategic ecosystem bets on alliance partners that are well-positioned for the next growth wave
  • How competitors are gaining ground with common alliance partners through sales programs, go-to-market motions and training
  • How to create unique value with alliance partners that resonates with end customers

Digital Transformation Outlook: Strategy Rebound, GenAI Impact and Ecosystems Importance in 2025

  • Why strategy consulting will rebound in 2025, and which consultancies will benefit
  • Discussion of ERP consolidation (e.g., S4Hanna, mainframe modernization)
  • Cloud migration services, custom apps development and workflow management
  • How generative AI (GenAI)-enabled solutions will upend organizational structures and business models for IT services and consultancies, with follow-on effects for partners
  • How the emergence of ecosystem intelligence as a strategic priority will impact IT services companies, consultancies and technology alliance partners

Cloud Market 2025: How GenAI Will Shape the Future

  • How GenAI will offset some of the slowdown in cloud revenue growth
  • How Microsoft will challenge Amazon Web Services’ leadership in IaaS and PaaS
  • How SaaS vendors will monetize GenAI in 2025

6G: How Government Intervention Globally Will Shape the Next Generation of Telecom

  • What spectrum bands 6G will likely leverage
  • How 6G will shape communication service providers’ capex investments
  • How governments might get involved to ensure 6G becomes a reality

AI PCs in 2025: Unlocking Mass Appeal and Overcoming Market Challenges

  • The potential impact of AI PCs on PC refresh cycles in 2025
  • How PC makers will set themselves apart
  • Expectations for the PC market overall in 2025 based on TBR’s latest research and analysis

Navigating GenAI: Insights, Strategies and Opportunities for 2025

  • How GenAI is impacting buyer-vendor relationships and what is next in the evolution of their business models
  • How tech and services companies are using alliances to extend their reach within enterprises and across the larger GenAI — and emerging tech — ecosystem
  • Which consultancies, IT services vendors, cloud and software companies, and infrastructure players are best positioned for the next wave of GenAI adoption

 
Visit the TBR Insights Live page to discover what our experts will be discussing next.

Comcast Business Nears $10B in Annual Revenue and Accelerates Enterprise Growth but Faces Headwinds from Competitive and Macroeconomic Pressures

2025 Comcast Business Analyst Conference, Philadelphia, April 2-3, 2025 — A select group of industry analysts gathered at the Comcast Center in Philadelphia to hear from Comcast Business leaders about the unit’s progress and success with its sales and go-to-market strategies. The central theme of the event was “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” which reflects Comcast Business’s ability to provide solutions to its customers through advancements in areas including AI implementation, network technologies, industry partnerships, and acquisitions, including Masergy and Nitel. The event was hosted by CNBC Senior Markets Correspondent Dominic Chu and included a State of the Business session from Comcast Business President Edward Zimmermann, a Strategy & Vision session from Comcast Business Chief Product Officer Bob Victor, and an update on Comcast’s network from Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi. Also included were panel discussions with senior leadership as well as speaker sessions featuring industry partners Cisco and Intelisys and a Comcast Business customer within the brewing industry.

 

TBR perspective

Since its inception in 2006, Comcast Business has consistently grown into a more formidable competitor in the B2B telecom space. Most of this growth has stemmed from the SMB segment, where Comcast Business’ superior DOCSIS-based, hybrid-fiber coax (HFC) fixed broadband offerings were priced right compared to non-fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) telco offerings and addressed demand for more bandwidth. Comcast Business’ strategy has evolved over the past decade to target additional growth segments including midmarket businesses and multinational enterprises via the operator’s managed services portfolio, strategic acquisitions including Masergy, and partnerships with global operators spanning 130 countries.
 
Other key growth drivers over the past decade include Comcast Business’ increasing focus on the public sector, including federal agencies, as well as the launch of portfolio segments including Comcast Business Mobile and value-added services in areas including SD-WAN, security and unified communications.
 
The success of Comcast Business’ growth strategies has enabled the company to essentially reach its long-term goal of generating $10 billion in annual revenue (Comcast Business generated $9.7 billion in revenue for full-year 2024). Comcast Business, which increased total revenue by about 5% in 2024, is also outpacing incumbent operators competing in the B2B market in revenue growth as service providers including AT&T, Verizon and Lumen continue to face significant revenue erosion from customers disconnecting from legacy data and voice services.
 
Despite its recent strong momentum, Comcast Business will encounter obstacles as it tries to increase revenue due to headwinds including competition from the expansion of fixed wireless access (FWA) and FTTP services, and macroeconomic pressures that will cause businesses to optimize spending on connectivity services. Despite its ability to sustain revenue growth in 2024, driven by increased revenue from enterprise solutions and higher average rates from small business customers, Comcast Business lost a net of 16,000 customer relationships in 2024 (compared to customer relationship net additions of 17,000 in 2023 and 52,000 in 2022).
 
TBR attributes rising B2B FWA adoption, especially for Verizon and T-Mobile, as the primary driver of the net loss as more businesses are gravitating to FWA for its cost savings over traditional fixed broadband services as well as its greater ease of installation, which is helping to support companies seeking to quickly launch new branch locations. Comcast Business will also face competitive pressures from operators including AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon that are expanding their FTTP footprints via organic builds and acquisitions, which will give these operators new opportunities to offer converged service plans combining mobile and broadband services. Comcast Business will also continue to face pressures from businesses continuing to migrate off of pay-TV and VoIP (voice over IP) services.
 
We expect that current macroeconomic challenges, including mass layoffs within the private and public sectors and uncertainty around tariff impacts, will create headwinds for Comcast Business and the overall U.S. B2B telecom market. Though network connectivity solutions such as broadband will remain essential to businesses, companies will need to optimize spending to counter macroeconomic pressures.
 
TBR believes these challenges will require Comcast Business to become more dependent on providing a stronger value proposition to retain and grow its customer base in addition to its reliance on the strengths of its network and solutions portfolio. Comcast Business is also addressing these industry shifts by evolving its portfolio of adjacent solutions in areas including secure networking, cybersecurity, and managed IT services to augment revenue from its core broadband services.

Impact and opportunities

Comcast Business is leveraging AI to optimize its network performance and sales and customer service capabilities

Sessions throughout the event discussed how deeper AI implementation will enable Comcast to enhance capabilities such as network performance and sales and customer service, thereby improving overall efficiency and customer experience. For instance, AI integration is enabling Comcast to automate over 99.7% of all software changes that it is making on its network, which is supporting network self-healing capabilities that can quickly resolve outages. These capabilities will help Comcast Business to more effectively retain customers as recent disruptions experienced by rivals, such as AT&T’s two major prolonged network outages in 2024, have resulted in customer losses and tarnished brand images for impacted operators.
 
AI is also enabling Comcast to enhance the cybersecurity of its network, including through the development of a next-generation firewall embedded into the network, which leverages GenAI and does not require dedicated CPE (customer premises equipment).
 
The vendor is also focused on training its customer care and sales teams to more effectively leverage AI to improve customer support and enhance operations. Comcast Business is increasing the number of AIOps use cases and applying AI and machine learning (ML) across its managed solutions platform to improve service delivery, assurance and management, both for customers and the internal teams that support customers (e.g., help desk, network operations center [NOC] and security operations center [SOC]).
 
Comcast expects AI to not only improve network and operational efficiencies but also provide significant revenue-generation opportunities, though the company is still in the early stages of developing strategies to do so. For instance, Comcast’s edge computing resources enable the company to support ultra-low latency speeds of less than 1 millisecond to many of its customers. These capabilities will position Comcast to optimize connectivity and user experience for future advanced AI applications in areas such as AR/VR that will be more dependent on ultra-low latency, though current AI applications such as ChatGPT are not as dependent on ultra-low latency as they are mainly text-based.

Comcast Business continues to accelerate its data speeds to incentivize customers, though industry pricing pressures will hamper connection growth

Throughout the event, Comcast Business promoted its accelerating data speeds, which are aided by network advancements such as DOCSIS 4.0 and mid-split upgrades to Comcast’s HFC network. Enhancements to Comcast Business’ connectivity portfolio include extending the availability of its Dedicated Internet solution and upgrading the service to provide symmetrical download and upload speeds up to 200Mbps over HFC or up to 400Gbps over fiber.
 
Comcast expects to accelerate its Dedicated Internet solution to reach symmetrical speeds of 300Mbps over HFC and reach a total of over three million passings this year. Other updates to the Dedicated Internet solution include adding a network reliability guarantee, which provides SLAs ensuring 99.99% network uptime, and enhanced proactive network monitoring, which enables IT teams to optimize performance.
 
TBR believes these updates will help to attract clients with bandwidth-intensive workloads, especially customers with more stringent SLA requirements necessitating minimal network downtime. However, TBR also recognizes that competitive pricing and the overall value proposition provided by operators are becoming more influential factors in contract wins within the B2B market. As evidenced by the robust uptake of FWA, small businesses are especially concerned with the value they are getting for the price paid, and they are migrating to lower-cost broadband offerings to obtain internet access that more closely meets their needs and aligns with what they are willing to pay.
 
T-Mobile and Verizon are feeding this market shift to “rightsized bandwidth” through clever marketing and customer education about what businesses actually need. Comcast Business will need to demonstrate why its cutting-edge broadband offerings are necessary for its customers in order to justify the premium pricing. It also has an opportunity to further strengthen the value proposition of its value-added services when combined with its core broadband services. Comcast Business Mobile is a key portfolio segment Comcast Business can further leverage to combat pressures from rivals’ FWA services and converged service bundles.
 
Though Comcast Business Mobile connections are not reported by Comcast, TBR believes just a small portion of Comcast Business customers are currently enrolled in the service as only 12% of Comcast’s residential broadband customer were enrolled in Xfinity Mobile in 4Q24. Heavier promotional activity, such as offering free lines for a limited time, could help Comcast Business Mobile compete more aggressively against rival B2B smartphone plans while creating a stickier ecosystem to retain high-value broadband customers long-term. Comcast Business Mobile’s impact is limited to the SMB market, however, as the brand supports a maximum of 20 lines per business customer under Comcast’s current MVNO agreement with Verizon.

Comcast will strengthen its enterprise business and expand sales channels via the Nitel acquisition

The analyst event coincided with Comcast Business closing its acquisition of Chicago-based managed service provider Nitel on April 1 from private equity firm Cinven. Nitel is a NaaS (Network as a Service) provider offering solutions in areas such as networking (including SD-WAN and SASE [Secure Access Service Edge]), cloud services and cybersecurity.
 
Through the purchase, Comcast Business will expand its footprint in the midmarket and enterprise customer segments and gain Nitel’s 6,600 clients across the U.S. within verticals including financial services, healthcare and education. Acquiring Nitel also enables Comcast Business to expand its channel distribution strategy to more effectively target new sales opportunities within the midmarket and enterprise segments.
 
Comcast Business is also gaining AI and software tools from the Nitel acquisition that will enable it to enhance its sales and customer service capabilities. These benefits include robust orchestration capabilities, an instant quoting tool that makes it easier to price and establish deals across multiple vendors and sites, and a digital dashboard that offers a single-pane-of-glass view of deployments.

Conclusion

Comcast Business remains in a relatively strong position within the B2B market as the company continues to outpace its competitors in revenue growth and will continue to expand its client base within the midmarket and large enterprise segments by leveraging its Masergy and Nitel acquisitions. Comcast Business also has an opportunity to increase revenue by refining its international strategy and more deeply leveraging assets — such as its managed services portfolio, partnerships with global operators across 130 countries, and numerous acquisitions including Sky, Masergy, Nitel, Deep Blue Communications and Blueface — that enable it to support multinational corporations.
 
However, SMB, which accounts for the majority of Comcast Business’ revenue, is becoming a more challenging segment in which to grow market share as FWA competition and macroeconomic challenges lead to spending constraints. These headwinds will require Comcast Business to become more focused on enhancing its value proposition to retain and grow its SMB client base and combat competitive pressures in the market.

Sheer Scale of GTC 2025 Reaffirms NVIDIA’s Position at the Epicenter of the AI Revolution

As the undisputed leader of the AI market, NVIDIA and its GPU Technology Conference (GTC) are unmatched compared to other companies and their respective annual events when it comes to the enormous impact they have on the broader information technology market. GTC 2025 took place March 17-21 in San Jose, Calif., with a record-breaking 25,000 in-person attendees — and 300,000 virtual attendees — and nearly 400 exhibitors on-site to showcase solutions built leveraging NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing platforms.

NVIDIA GTC 2025: Pioneering the future of AI and accelerated computing

In 2024 NVIDIA CEO and cofounder Jensen Huang called NVIDIA GTC the “Woodstock of AI,” but to lead off the 2025 event’s keynote address at the SAP Center, he aptly changed his phrasing, calling GTC 2025 “the Super Bowl of AI,” adding that “the only difference is that everybody wins at this Super Bowl.”
 
While the degree to which every tech vendor “wins” in AI will vary, NVIDIA currently serves as the rising tide that is lifting all boats — in this case, hardware makers, ISVs, cloud providers, colocation vendors and service providers — to help accelerate market growth despite the economic and geopolitical struggles that have hampered technology spending in the post-COVID era. NVIDIA’s significant investments not as a GPU company but as a platform company — delivering on innovations in full-stack AI and accelerated computing infrastructure and software — have provided much of the foundation upon which vendors across the tech ecosystem continue to build their AI capabilities.
 
During the event, which also took place at the nearby San Jose McEnery Convention Center, Huang shared his vision for the future, emphasizing the immense scale of the inference opportunity while introducing new AI platforms to support what the company sees as the next frontiers of AI. Additionally, he reaffirmed NVIDIA’s commitment to supporting the entire AI ecosystem by building AI platforms, rather than AI solutions, to drive coinnovation and create value across the entire ecosystem.

The transformation of traditional data centers into AI factories represents a $1 trillion opportunity

The introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022 captured the attention of businesses around the world and marked the beginning of the generative AI (GenAI) revolution. Since then, organizations across all industries have invested in the exploration of GenAI technology and are increasingly transitioning from the prototyping phase to the deployment phase, leveraging the power of inference to create intelligent agents, power autonomous vehicles and drive other operational efficiencies. As AI innovation persists, driven largely by the vision of Huang and the increasingly capital-rich company behind him, new AI paradigms are emerging and NVIDIA is helping the entire AI ecosystem to prepare and adapt.

The rise of reasoning

On Jan. 27, otherwise known as DeepSeek Monday, NVIDIA stock closed the day down 17.0% from the previous day’s trading session, with investors believing DeepSeek’s innovations would materially reduce the total addressable market for AI infrastructure. DeepSeek claimed that by using a combination of model compression and other software optimization techniques, it had vastly reduced the amount of time and resources required to train its competitive AI reasoning model, DeepSeek-R1. However, at GTC 2025, NVIDIA argued that investors misunderstood implications on the inference side of the AI model equation.
 
Traditional knowledge-based models can quickly return answers to users’ queries, but because basic knowledge-based models rely solely on the corpus of data that they are trained on, they are limited in their ability to address more complex AI use cases. To enhance the quality of model outputs, AI model developers are increasingly leveraging post-training techniques such as fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, distillation, search methods and best-of-n sampling. However, more recently test-time scaling, also known as long thinking, has emerged as a technique to vastly expand the reasoning capabilities of AI models, allowing them to address increasingly complex queries and use cases.

From one scaling law to three

In the past, pre-training scaling was the single law dictating how applying compute resources would impact model performance, with model performance improving as pre-training compute resources increased. However, at GTC 2025, NVIDIA explained two additional scaling laws in effect — post-training scaling and test-time scaling. As their names suggest, model pre-training and post-training are on the AI model training side of the equation. However, test-time scaling takes place during inference, allocating more computational resources during the inference phase to allow a model to reason through several potential responses before outputting the best answer.
 
Traditional AI models operate quickly, generating hundreds of tokens to output a response. However, with test-time scaling, reasoning models generate thousands or even tens of thousands of thinking tokens before outputting an answer. As such, NVIDIA expects the new world of AI reasoning to drive more than 100 times the token generation, equating to more than 100 times the revenue opportunity for AI factories.
 
During an exclusive session with industry analysts, Huang said, “Inference is the hardest computing at scale problem [the world has ever seen],” dispelling the misnomer that inference is somehow easier and demands fewer resources than training while also indirectly supporting Huang’s belief that the transformation of traditional data centers into AI factories will drive total data center capital expenditures (capex) to $1 trillion or more by 2028.
 

Graph: NVIDIA Revenue, Growth and Projections (Source: TBR)

NVIDIA Revenue, Growth and Projections (Source: TBR) — If you believe you have access to TBR’s NVIDIA research via your employer’s enterprise license or would like to learn how to access the full research, click here.


 
While on the surface, $1 trillion in data center capex by 2028 sounds like a lofty threshold, TBR believes the capex amount and timeline are feasible considering NVIDIA’s estimate that 2024 data center capex was around $400 billion.
 
Additionally, during 1Q25, announcements centered on investment commitments to build out data centers have become increasingly common, and TBR expects this trend to only accelerate over the next few years. For example, in January the Trump administration announced the Stargate Project with the intent to invest $500 billion over the next four years to build new AI infrastructure in the United States.
 
However, it is worth noting that Stargate’s $500 billion figure represents more than just AI servers; it includes other items such as the construction of new energy infrastructure to power data centers. TBR believes the same holds true for NVIDIA’s $1 trillion figure, especially when considering TBR’s 2024 total AI server market estimate of $39 billion.

The more you buy, the more you make: NVIDIA innovates to maximize potential AI factory revenue

To support the burgeoning demands of AI, NVIDIA is staying true to the playbook through which it has already derived so much success — investing in platform innovation and the support of its growing partner ecosystem to drive the adoption of AI technology across all industries.

AI factory revenue relies on user productivity

Reasoning capabilities allow models to meet the demands of a wider range of increasingly complex AI use cases. Although the revenue opportunity of AI factories increases as AI reasoning drives an exponential rise in token generation, expanding token generation also creates bottlenecks within AI factories and inevitably there is a tradeoff. To maximize revenue potential, AI factories must optimize the balance between token volume and cost per token.
 
From the perspective of an AI inference service user, experience comes down to the speed at which answers are generated and the accuracy of those answers. Accuracy is tied directly to the underlying AI model(s) powering the service and can be thought of as a constant variable in this scenario, while the speed at which answers are generated for a single user is dictated by the rate of output token generation for that specific user. Having more GPUs dedicated to serving a single user results in an increased rate of output token generation for that user and is something that users are typically willing to pay a premium for.
 
However, in general, as more GPUs are dedicated to serving a single user, the overall output token generation of the AI factory falls. On the opposite end of the spectrum, an AI factory can maximize its overall output token generation by changing GPU resource allocations to serve a greater number of users at the same time; however, this has a negative impact on the rate of output tokens generated per user, increasing request latency and thereby detracting from the user’s experience.
 
As NVIDIA noted during the event, to maximize revenue, AI factories must optimize the balance of total factory output token generation and the rate of output token generation per user. However, once the optimal allocation of GPU resources is determined, revenue opportunity hits a threshold. As such, to increase the productivity and revenue opportunity of AI factories, NVIDIA supports the AI ecosystem with its investments in the development of increasingly performant GPUs, allowing for greater total factory output token generation as well as increased rates of output token generation per user.
 
During his keynote address, Huang laid out NVIDIA’s four-year GPU road map, detailing the upcoming Blackwell Ultra as well as the NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 rack, which leverages Blackwell Ultra and features an updated NVL72 design for improved energy efficiency and serviceability. Additionally, he discussed the company’s Vera Rubin architecture, which is set for release in late 2026 and marks the shift from HBM3/HBM3e to HBM4 memory, as well as Vera Rubin Ultra, which is expected in 2027 and will leverage HBM4e memory to deliver higher memory bandwidth. To round out NVIDIA’s four-year road map, Huang announced the company’s Feynman GPU architecture, which is slated for release in 2028.

Scale up before you scale out, but NVIDIA supports both

In combination with NVIDIA’s updated GPU architecture road map, Huang revealed preliminary technical specifications for the Vera Rubin NVL144 and Rubin Ultra NVL576 racks, with each system being built on iterative generations of the company’s ConnectX SuperNIC and NVLink technologies, promising stronger networking performance with respect to increased bandwidth and higher throughput. NVIDIA’s growing focus on NVL rack systems underscores Huang’s philosophy that organizations should scale up before they scale out, prioritizing the deployment of fewer densely configured AI systems compared to a greater number of less powerful systems to drive simplicity and workload efficiency.
 

Graph: 2024 Data Center GPU Market Share (Source: TBR)

2024 Data Center GPU Market Share (Source: TBR) — If you believe you have access to TBR’s NVIDIA research via your employer’s enterprise license or would like to learn how to access the full research, click here.


 
Networking has and continues to become more integral to NVIDIA’s business as the company’s industry-leading advancements in accelerated compute have necessitated full-stack AI infrastructure innovation. While NVIDIA drives accelerated computing efficiency on and close to the motherboard through the design of increasingly high-performance GPUs and CPUs and its ongoing investments in ConnectX and NVLink, the company is also heavily invested in driving AI infrastructure efficiency through its networking platform investments in Quantum-X InfiniBand and Spectrum-X Ethernet.
 
Although copper is well suited for short-distance data transmissions, fiber optics is more effective over long distances. As such, the scale-out of AI factories requires an incredible number of optical transceivers to connect every NIC (network interface card) to every switch, representing the single largest hardware component in a typical AI data center. NVIDIA estimates that optical transceivers consume approximately 10% of total computing power in most AI data centers. During his keynote address, Huang announced NVIDIA Photonics — what the company describes as a coinvention across an ecosystem of copacked optics partners — to reduce power consumption and the number of discrete components in an AI data center.
 
Leveraging components from partners, including TSMC, Sumitomo and Corning, NVIDIA Photonics allows NVIDIA to replace pluggable optical transceivers with optical engines that are copackaged with the switch ASIC. This allows optical fibers to plug directly into the switch with the onboard optical engine processing and converting incoming data — in the form of optical signals — into electrical signals that can then be immediately processed by the switch. Liquid-cooled Quantum-X Photonic switch systems are expected to become available later this year ahead of the Spectrum-X Photonic switch systems that are coming in 2026. NVIDIA claims that the new systems improve power efficiency by 3.5x while also delivering 10x higher resiliency and 1.3x faster time to deploy compared to traditional AI data center architectures leveraging pluggable optical transceivers.

Securing the developer base

Adjacent to what the company is doing in the data center, NVIDIA announced other, more accessible Blackwell-based hardware platforms, including RTX PRO Series GPUs, DGX Spark and DGX Station, at GTC 2025. At CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2025 in January, NVIDIA made two major announcements: Project DIGITS, a personal AI supercomputer that provides AI researchers, data scientists and students with access to the Grace Blackwell platform; and the next-generation GeForce RTX 50 Series of consumer desktop and laptop GPUs for gamers, creators and developers.
 
Building on these announcements, at GTC 2025 NVIDIA introduced DGX Spark, the new name of the previously announced Project DIGITS, leveraging NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip and ConnectX-7 to deliver 1,000 AI TFLOPS (tera floating-point operations per second) performance in an energy-efficient and compact form factor. DGX Spark will come pre-installed with the NVIDIA AI software stack to support local prototyping, fine-tuning and inferencing of models with up to 200 billion parameters, and NVIDIA OEM partners ASUS, Dell Technologies, HP Inc. and Lenovo are already building their own branded versions.
 
To complement its recently unveiled GeForce RTX 50 Series, NVIDIA announced a comprehensive lineup of RTX PRO Series GPUs for laptops, desktops and servers with “PRO” denoting the solutions’ intent to support enterprise applications. At the top end of the lineup, RTX PRO 6000 will deliver up to 4,000 AI TFLOPS performance, making it the most powerful discrete desktop GPU ever created. While DGX Spark systems will be available beginning in July, DGX Station is expected to be released toward the end of the year. DGX Station promises to be the highest-performing desktop AI supercomputer, featuring the GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip and ConnectX-8, with OEM partners, including ASUS, Box, Dell Technologies, HP Inc., Lambda and Supermicro, building systems. Together, these announcements highlight NVIDIA’s commitment to democratizing AI and supporting developers.

Software is the most important feature of NVIDIA GPUs

In TBR’s 1Q24 Semiconductor Market Landscape, NVIDIA led all vendors in terms of trailing-12 month (TTM) corporate revenue growth, with hardware revenue accounting for an estimated 88.9% of the company’s TTM top line. However, while NVIDIA’s industry-leading top-line growth continues to be driven primarily by increasing GPU and AI infrastructure systems sales, the reason customers choose NVIDIA hardware ultimately boils down to two interrelated factors: the company’s developer ecosystem, and its AI platform strategy.

The CUDA advantage

In 2006 NVIDIA introduced CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), a coding language and framework purpose-built to enable the acceleration of workloads beyond graphics. With CUDA, developers gained the ability to code applications optimized to run on NVIDIA GPUs. Since CUDA’s inception, NVIDIA has relentlessly invested in strengthening CUDA, supporting backward compatibility, publishing new CUDA libraries, and giving developers new resources to optimize the performance and simplify the building of applications.
 
As such, many legacy AI applications and libraries are rooted in CUDA, whose documentation is light years ahead of competing platforms, such as AMD ROCm. With respect to driving AI efficiency, several NVIDIA executives and spokespeople at GTC 2025 circled back to the notion that, when it comes to enabling the most complex AI workloads of today and tomorrow, software optimization is as important as, if not more important than, infrastructure innovation and optimization, underscoring the unique value behind NVIDIA’s CUDA-optimized GPUs. In short, at the heart of NVIDIA’s comprehensive AI stack and competitive advantage is CUDA, and as Huang emphasized to the attending industry analysts, “Software is the most important feature of NVIDIA GPUs.”

A new framework for AI inference

As the AI inference boom materializes, NVIDIA has leveraged the programmability of its GPUs to optimize the performance of reasoning models at scale, with Huang introducing NVIDIA Dynamo at GTC 2025. Dynamo is an open-source modular inference framework that was designed to serve GenAI models in multinode distributed environments and specifically developed for accelerating and scaling AI reasoning models to maximize token revenue generation.
 
The framework leverages a technique called “disaggregated serving,” which separates the processing of input tokens in the prefill phase of inference from the processing of output tokens in the decode phase. Traditional large language model (LLM) deployments leverage a single GPU or GPU node for both the prefill and decode phases, but each phase has different resource requirements, with prefill being compute-bound and decode being memory-bound. As NVIDIA’s VP of Accelerated Computing Ian Buck put it, “Dynamo is the Kubernetes of GPU orchestration.”
 
To optimize the utilization of GPU resources for distributed inference, Dynamo’s Planner feature continuously monitors GPU capacity metrics in distributed inference environments to make real-time decisions on whether to serve incoming user requests using disaggregated or aggregated serving while also selecting and dynamically shifting GPU resources to serve prefill or decode inference phases.
 
To further drive inference efficiencies by reducing request latency and time to first token, Dynamo has a Smart Router feature to minimize key value (KV) cache re-computation. KV cache can be thought of as the model’s contextual understanding of a user’s input. As the size of the input increases, KV cache computation increases quadratically, and if the same request is frequently executed, this can lead to excessive KV cache re-computation, reducing inference efficiency. Dynamo Smart Router works by assigning an overlap score to each new inference request as it arrives and then using that overlap score to intelligently route the request to the best-suited resource — i.e., whichever available resource has the highest overlap score between its KV cache and the user’s request — minimizing KV cache recomputation and freeing up GPU resources.
 
Additionally, Dynamo leans on its Distributed KV Cache Manager feature to support both distributed and disaggregated inference serving and to offer hierarchical caching capabilities. Calculating KV cache is resource intensive, but as AI demand increases, so does the volume of KV cache that must be stored to minimize KV cache recomputation. Dynamo Distributed KV Cache Manager leverages advanced caching policies to prioritize the placement of frequently accessed data closer to the GPU, with less accessed data being offloaded farther from the GPU.
 
As such, the hottest KV cache data is stored on GPU memory with progressively colder data being offloaded to shared CPU host memory, solid-state drives (SSDs) or networked object storage. Leveraging these key features, NVIDIA claims Dynamo maximizes resource utilization, yielding up to 30 times higher performance for AI factories running reasoning models like DeepSeek-R1 on NVIDIA Blackwell. Additionally, NVIDIA leaders state that while designed specifically for the inference of AI reasoning models, Dynamo can double token generation when applied to traditional knowledge-based LLMs on NVIDIA Hopper.
 

The Super Bowl but everybody wins

NVIDIA’s astronomical revenue growth and relentless innovation road map aside, perhaps nothing emphasizes the degree of importance the company holds over the future of the entire AI market more than the number of partners that are clamoring to gain a foothold using NVIDIA as a launching point. The San Jose McEnery Convention Center was filled with nearly 400 exhibitors showcasing how NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing platforms are driving innovation across all industries. NVIDIA GTC is no longer a conference highlighting the innovations of a single company; it is the epicenter of showcasing AI opportunity, and every company that wishes to play a role in the market was in attendance.
 
The broad swath of NVIDIA’s partner ecosystem was represented. Infrastructure OEMs and ODMs displayed systems built on NVIDIA reference architectures, while NVIDIA inception startups highlighted their own diverse codeveloped AI solutions. However, perhaps the most compelling and largest-scale example of NVIDIA relying on its partners to deliver AI solutions to end customers came from the company’s global systems integrator (GSI) partners.

NVIDIA provides the platform; partners provide the solution

The world’s leading GSIs, including Accenture, Deloitte, EY, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), all showcased how they are leveraging NVIDIA’s AI Enterprise software platform — comprising NIMs, NeMo and Blueprints — to help customers build and deploy their own customized AI solutions with a heavy emphasis on agentic AI. While some of the largest enterprises in the world have the talent required to build bespoke AI solutions, many other organizations rely on NVIDIA-certified GSI partners with training and expertise in NVIDIA’s AI technologies to develop and deploy AI solutions.
 
Agentic AI has emerged as the next frontier of AI, using reasoning and iterative planning to solve complex, multistep problems autonomously, leading to enhanced productivity and user experiences. NVIDIA AI Enterprise’s tools help make this possible, and at GTC 2025, NVIDIA business leaders shed light on three overarching reasons why NVIDIA AI Enterprise has resonated with end customers and NVIDIA partners alike.
 
First, NVIDIA AI Enterprise builds on CUDA to deliver software-optimized full-stack acceleration, much like other NVIDIA AI platforms. Business leaders essentially explained NIMs — the building blocks of AI Enterprise — as an opinionated way of running a GenAI model on a GPU in the most efficient way possible.
 
Second, NVIDIA AI Enterprise is enterprise grade, meaning that the thousands of first- and third-party libraries constituting the platform are constantly maintained with AI copilots scanning for security threats and AI agents patching software autonomously. Additionally, enterprises demand commitments to maintenance and standard APIs that are not going to change, and NVIDIA AI Enterprise ticks these boxes while also offering tiered levels of support services on top of the platform.
 
Finally, because NIMs are containerized, based on Kubernetes, AI Enterprise is extremely portable, allowing the platform to deliver a consistent experience across a variety of environments.

Autonomous vehicles are the tip of the physical AI iceberg

Several of NVIDIA’s automotive partners also attended GTC 2025, displaying their vehicles inside and outside the convention center. These partners all leverage at least one of NVIDIA’s three computing platforms comprising the company’s end-to-end solutions for autonomous vehicles, with several partners leveraging NVIDIA’s entire platform — including General Motors (GM), whose adoption of NVIDIA AI, simulation and accelerated compute was announced by Huang during the GTC 2025 keynote address.
 
While autonomous vehicles are perhaps the most tangible example, NVIDIA’s three computer systems can be used to build robots of all kinds, ranging from industrial robots used on manufacturing lines to surgical robots supporting the healthcare industry. The three computers required to build physical AI include NVIDIA DGX, which is leveraged for model pre-training and post-training; NVIDIA OVX, which is leveraged for simulation to further train, test and validate physical AI models; and NVIDIA AGX, which acts as the robot runtime and is used to safely deploy distilled physical AI models in the real world.
 
Following the emergence of agentic AI, NVIDIA sees physical AI as the next wave of artificial intelligence, and the company has already codeveloped foundation models and simulation frameworks to support advancements in the field with industry-leading partners, such as Disney Research and Google DeepMind.

Conclusion

The sheer scale of NVIDIA GTC 2025 reaffirmed NVIDIA’s position at the epicenter of the AI revolution, with Huang’s keynote address filling all the available seating in the SAP Center. Born from Huang’s long-standing vision of accelerating workloads by applying parallel processing, NVIDIA’s relentless investments in the R&D of the entire AI stack — from GPUs to interconnect and software platforms to developer resources — remains the driving force behind the AI giant’s success and seemingly insurmountable lead over competitors.
 
NVIDIA’s first-mover advantage in accelerated computing was predicated on the company’s CUDA platform and its ability to allow developers to optimize applications running on NVIDIA GPUs. Nearly 20 years later, NVIDIA continues to leverage CUDA and its robust ecosystem of developers to create innovative AI platforms, such as Omniverse and AI Enterprise, that attract partners from every corner of the technology ecosystem. By swimming in its own lane and relying on its growing NVIDIA Partner Network to deliver AI systems and solutions to end customers, NVIDIA has built an unrivaled ecosystem of partners whose actions on the front lines with end customers facilitate the near-infinite gravity behind the company’s AI platforms.

Infosys, Cognizant, TCS and Wipro ITS Double Down on Competitive Pricing Strategy While Trying to Enhance Client Engagement 

TBR FourCast is a quarterly blog series examining and comparing the performance, strategies and industry standing of four IT services companies. The series also highlights standouts and laggards, according to TBR’s quarterly revenue projections. This quarter, we look at four India-centric vendors — Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro IT Services (ITS) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) — and analyze how investments in portfolios, training and innovation are positioning them for growth.

 
Although vendors experienced a small rise in discretionary spending among financial services clients in 4Q24, smaller deal wins, particularly those in consulting, remain infrequent, leading IT service vendors to reprioritize resources to align with market demand and invest in innovative and emerging technologies. India-centric vendors are leveraging competitive pricing enabled by largely offshore delivery, capitalizing on clients’ demand for cost optimization and operational efficiency.
 
According to TBR’s 4Q24 Cognizant report, “Amid an unfavorable sales environment, in which the procurement process is prolonged as IT buyers grapple with smaller budgets and additional layers of executive approval, Cognizant has increasingly relied on its legacy DNA as a low-cost IT services provider to compete on price. This approach is far from exclusive to Cognizant, as other India-centric peers such as Wipro ITS also compete on price. As part of this strategy, Cognizant has been increasingly engaging on a fixed-price basis, relying on automation to maintain margins on net-new accounts.” At the same time, many vendors outside India are executing on localization strategies to enhance client engagement and build signings.
 

TBR Fourcast: Insights into Accenture, Deloitte, IBM Consulting and Infosys, including Accenture’s extensive investment in GenAI and IBM Consulting’s and Infosys’ risk of falling into a downward trajectory

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A well-balanced portfolio with industry-specific solutions is key to enhancing client engagement

In addition to leveraging their low-cost pricing models, India-centric vendors will need to focus on deepening relations with clients to grow revenue. Applying emerging technology, such as AI and generative AI, to industry-specific solutions is allowing vendors to remain competitive by demonstrating competency as well as an in-depth understanding of clients’ needs. As localization strategies become more common, leveraging industry-specific solutions will be important for the India-centric vendors’ revenue growth.
 
All India-centric vendors are forming and expanding partnerships to accelerate the adoption of AI technology and expand client reach within and across verticals. For example, Infosys and NVIDIA released small language models (SLMs) for Infosys Topaz BankingSLM and Infosys Topaz ITOpsSLM, enabling enterprise data to be used over prebuilt SLMs, which help to facilitate the development of industry-specific use cases.
 
Similarly, TCS established the AI.Cloud business unit, highlighting the importance of integrated solutions that combine AI and cloud capabilities to maximize client value. This is further demonstrated by the creation of a dedicated NVIDIA unit within AI.Cloud to accelerate AI adoption across industries through tailored solutions leveraging NVIDIA’s technology.
 

IT Services Revenue and Headcount for Cognizant, Infosys, TCS and Wipro, 2024 (Source: TBR)


 
Although partners are key to a strong go-to-market strategy, especially when introducing emerging technologies and deepening client reach, it is important for the India-centric vendors to differentiate their offerings. Partnering with leaders in AI and cloud, such as NVIDIA and ServiceNow, is vital to remaining relevant; however, developing proprietary solutions internally will be important to distinguish the India-centric vendors from each other. Infosys’ recent portfolio additions will support the company’s revenue growth.
 
For example, the company launched the Finacle Data and AI Suite for banking clients to use AI to improve the customer experience and IT systems. Since July, Cognizant has been diligently building out its Neuro suite, which supports the adoption of automation and AI. Cognizant launched Neuro edge, which is an update to Neuro AI and includes Cognizant Neuro Cybersecurity and a multi-orchestration agent; Neuro Stores 360; and a Neuro AI Multi-Agent Accelerator and Multi-Agent Service Suite.
 
Similarly, TCS is focusing on internal development alongside strategic partnerships, notably establishing the TCS GoZero Hub, a center researching net-zero carbon emissions solutions for Australian clients, and the TCS Responsible AI Framework. Proprietary portfolio offerings around in-demand technology, namely AI, cloud and security, provide vendors with credibility among buyers seeking a third party that can solve their current and future problems.

Investments around innovation and training development build credibility and attract more clients

Cognizant, Infosys and TCS have been investing in building portfolios that balance partner-enabled and proprietary solutions. Meanwhile, Wipro ITS has relied heavily on partnerships to build its portfolio. Despite ongoing restructuring efforts, Wipro ITS continues to lag behind its India-centric peers in delivering in-demand and innovative solutions, especially those related to IoT and digital. Ensuring strong proprietary solutions requires vendors to continually invest in training development and innovation. Wipro ITS is investing in talent development to enhance its AI and digital skills and is increasingly hiring staff with skills in emerging technology. TBR believes these investments will boost Wipro ITS’ revenue performance but does not expect Wipro ITS’ performance to exceed that of Infosys and TCS.
 
Of the four vendors, Infosys provides perhaps the best example of how to invest in talent and innovation. The company is establishing a center in Kolkata, India, and will staff it with employees who have skills in cloud, AI and digital across industries. Beyond training, Infosys has expanded its innovative efforts by establishing an incubator and encouraging employees to bring forward ideas. Infosys’ training and incubator efforts will help propel the company’s growth. Likewise, TCS added freshers to the company in 2024 and will continue to do so in 2025, while remaining vigilant about the company’s cloud and AI training.
 
Given Infosys’ and TCS’ linear revenue growth models, their future performance continues to rely heavily on how well hiring, training and reskilling initiatives are executed, particularly around cloud and AI. The companies that remain more focused on employees and innovative capabilities can ensure that quality services are delivered to clients, allowing them to stay competitive and expand revenue share. In contrast to Infosys and TCS, Cognizant is ramping up its efforts to retain employees more reactively through rehiring former employees and increasing wages. Cognizant’s less pervasive training and innovation efforts could hurt long-term revenue growth, thereby aiding Infosys in its efforts to surpass Cognizant in revenue size, even with Cognizant’s recent acquisition of Belcan.

Improving revenue performance will depend on proactive go-to-market and resource management strategies

Ongoing and proactive investments in innovation, training around in-demand technology, and a balanced portfolio are key to competing for market share. Further, providing clients with industry-specific solutions from internal developments and having an in-depth understanding of partner-enabled and emerging technologies are vital to fueling revenue growth. In 4Q24 Infosys had the highest revenue per employee of the India-centric vendors, at $59,856, followed by Cognizant at $57,867, TCS at $49,600 and Wipro ITS at $45,812.
 
Wipro ITS could elevate its standing with investments in innovation and AI, enabling the company to develop more offerings internally and potentially secure more large deal wins. Cognizant and Wipro ITS could continue to trail behind Infosys and TCS in performance if they let service quality slip or do not continue to train employees on relevant skills. In addition to investing in innovation, training and portfolios, in the long term the four vendors would benefit from leveraging heavy India-based resources to help diversify revenue opportunities with local clients.
 

IT Services Revenue Forecast for Cognizant, Infosys, TCS and Wipro, 2020-2029 (Source: TBR)

 

5 Key Questions on Big Four Evolution and Strategy

Amid ongoing organizational shifts at the Big Four, 5 key questions are consistently heard among their employees, clients and ecosystem partners

The Big Four professional services firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — have all been undergoing organizational changes in the last couple years. TBR regularly hears five questions about how these firms manage themselves, grow and change. Taking a longitudinal view allows TBR to see that recent restructurings, layoffs and offerings all reflect how these firms are trying to address the following: who gets the best talent, who decides what’s next, who sells, how everyone in a firm knows what everyone else does, and what role will managed services play.
 
At any given moment, one or more of these firms may have solid answers, a consistent strategy and a fit-for-purpose organizational structure. Eventually, all that changes. TBR keeps these five questions in mind as we cover the Big Four, and in this blog we’re unpacking each question and why it matters.
 

Find out what’s in store for IT services vendors and consultancies in 2025 in terms of strategy consulting, generative AI (GenAI) and ecosystem intelligence.
 
Download TBR’s 2025 Digital Transformation Predictions special report today!


 

Question 1: Who gets the best talent?

The Big Four firms have some intellectual property, well-established brands and continually evolving alliances with technology providers, but their core asset is simply people. The firms bring clients talented people to solve business problems, provide assurance and/or implement a technology, leveraging a people arbitrage business model: I’ll supply the talent when you need it and for as long as you need it, then I’ll take that talent back. The catch? Within the firm, who decides which clients get the best talent? When capabilities around a particular technology or offering are in short supply, who decides how to allocate limited resources? Local office leaders, country leaders, regional leaders, global leaders, industry leaders, lead client service partners, technology alliance leaders?
 
Managing these competing demands for resources requires exceptional leadership and, as we’ve seen through the years, sometimes means upending the organizational structure to better suit a new way of deciding who gets the best talent.

Question 2: Who decides what’s next?

Over the last decade, the Big Four firms have launched practices in areas such as blockchain, cloud, AI, people advisory, a collection of SaaS offerings, and cybersecurity, to name a handful. Some of those practices have grown, some have disappeared and some just continue to be. In every case, a collection of partners made a business case to the partnership as a whole, getting enough consensus to invest people and money into building something new. At the same time, every Big Four firm has tweaked how it makes those decisions: which partners lead on new offerings, how consensus is built and how new offerings are evaluated over time — essentially, what’s next. If this seems like an inside-the-firm small consideration, look back at the list of practices — at least three generate significant revenue streams for each firm. With hindsight, maybe those new practices and offerings appear to be no-brainers, but some group of partners in each firm still had to make the case, pull together resources and convince the firm to bet on something new. Being late to market changes the way this question gets answered. So does the fear of being too entrenched in selling today to see what’s going to sell tomorrow.

Question 3: Who sells?

Speaking of selling, the Big Four have traditionally eschewed traditional sales teams, relying on every partner (and wannabe partner) to be responsible for landing new clients and expanding footprints within existing client bases. For generations, that worked well enough; however, as all of the Big Four firms’ offerings have become increasingly infused with technology, two developments have forced some changes.
 
First, highly skilled technology-focused talent didn’t always have the skills needed to sell and so couldn’t be evaluated, promoted and compensated in the traditional partner model. The Big Four all adjusted, creating new career paths for the valuable but not-partner-track professionals. Second, the technology-dependent offerings themselves became too complex for most partners to understand and sell on their own, creating an opening for professionals who combined tech skills and sales savvy. The ongoing challenges? Who decides which partners sell to clients? Software is fundamentally different from services, so if a firm experiments with selling software, is a dedicated software sales team necessary? How can partners in one service line sell clients on tech-heavy, specialized offerings from another service line? The Big Four firms continue bending the traditional selling model, and nearly every organizational change includes some element of tackling these “Who sells?” questions.

Question 4: How does everyone in a firm knows what everyone else does?

No one has conquered knowledge management — in any company, anywhere. The Big Four firms have repeatedly launched initiatives, platforms, and evaluation and compensation metrics trying to ensure that tax partners understand all the consulting offerings and that audit partners know when and how to bring in transaction partners. TBR believes the digital transformation and innovation centers that all four firms launched in the mid-2010s (e.g., PwC’s Experience Centers) were intended, as a side benefit, to enhance internal knowledge sharing. Big Four leaders have told TBR that their fellow partners across all service lines learned something new about their own firm every time they attended a client session at one of the centers.
 
Today, all four firms are leveraging AI-enabled platforms to enhance internal knowledge management and will likely see significant improvements. But the challenge will persist, as new offerings, capabilities, use cases, learnings and people constantly refresh the pool of knowledge, which needs to be shared for the Big Four to bring their entire selves to clients. Further, forming regional super-partnerships and reducing 100-plus member firms to a few dozen reflect the need for operational efficiencies, better service for international clients, and, yes, enhanced knowledge management so that everyone in the U.K. knows what everyone in Singapore is doing.

Question 5: What role will managed services play?

If the previous four questions have been perennial challenges for the Big Four firms, shaping organizational structure and leadership priorities, this last one has been a slow-building, nearly existential question. How will professional services firms built on a prestigious reputation and elevated fees staff, price, manage and even grow managed services practices that are, by nature, more transactional than the traditional client relationship model? Each of the Big Four firms has taken a different path (which is one reason TBR sees these firms as concurrently so similar and so different), and each firm has adjusted its vision for managed services at least once in the last four years.
 
And, once again, one common element among all the reorganizations and restructurings has been competing views — within the firms themselves as well as among the partners — about what happens next with managed services. In TBR’s view, the role of managed services may prove to be the biggest differentiator among these four firms over the next five years, even as managing talent in a generative AI (GenAI) world and keeping pace with technology partners’ shifting demands challenge Big Four leadership.
 

Watch Now: 2025 Predictions for Ecosystems & Alliances

Conclusion: What it all means for clients, partners and the ecosystem as a whole

If you’re reading news on the Big Four, keeping these five questions in mind can be useful to understand the “why” behind the “what.”
 
If you’re a client, other questions matter more. (Are they solving your problem or not? Do you trust them? Do they bring you people you like? Nothing else matters.)
 
If you’re a technology partner in the Big Four ecosystem, these five questions are critical to understanding where your alliance is headed. Does your Big Four partner have the right talent to dedicate to your shared clients? Are they innovating with you, and who is leading that effort? Can they capably sell your technology? Do you understand what they bring to the table and what differentiates them from the other Big Four firms and the sea of IT services companies? Are they investing for the long haul or for a quick consulting gig?
 
Circling back, if you’re running a Big Four firm, how you’re addressing these questions helps determine your internal organizational structure and your strategy for the next five years. And how you explain it all to your ecosystem partners may determine how fast you grow alongside them.

The Emerging Data Ecosystem: ISVs, Hyperscalers and Global Systems Integrators

Register for The Emerging Data Ecosystem:
ISVs, Hyperscalers and Global Systems Integrators

 

There is no GenAI strategy without a data strategy

Realizing the long-promised ROI of generative AI (GenAI) will require customers look for ways to better access, integrate, manage and govern large amounts of unstructured data. Data-native ISVs, hyperscalers and global systems integrators (GSIs) are evolving their critical ecosystems of solutions to deliver on the commitments of GenAI for enterprise. As such, roles within the cloud ecosystem are shifting, and the increase in open APIs and architectures will have lasting impacts on many data cloud ISVs and GSIs, including how they partner with one another as they race to gain AI workloads.
 
Join TBR Principal Analyst Boz Hristov and Senior Analyst Catie Merrill Thursday, May 1, 2025, for a live discussion and Q&A on insights into data cloud ISVs’ and hyperscalers’ strategies and their professional services partners, as well as how forming a triparty alliance structure at the data layer will help partners pursue higher-value GenAI opportunities.
 
Additionally, the pair will share an exclusive look at TBR’s revamped Cloud Data & Analytics Market Landscape, which provides insight into enterprises’ data strategies, vendor analysis by workload, and where the market is headed through 2025 and beyond. TBR’s Cloud Data & Analytics research stream tracks all hyperscalers; SaaS vendors such as SAP and Salesforce; and data cloud ISVs including Boomi, Confluent, Cloudera, Databricks, Informatica, MongoDB and Snowflake. The research also looks at the overarching layers of the data cloud stack, from storage and querying to business intelligence.

In this free session on the emerging data ecosystem you’ll learn:

  • The data cloud ISVs that have demonstrated success in alliance strategies
  • Ecosystem best practices of data cloud ISVs
  • C-Suite priorities regarding data management and GenAI
  • How hyperscalers are adjusting their partnering strategies to improve the flow of data and win new GenAI workloads
  • Why vendors are positioning around data intelligence, and the components necessary to succeed in this space

Register Now

 
TBR Insights Live sessions are held typically on Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous sessions can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.
 
TBR Insights Live: The Emerging Data Ecosystem: ISVS, Hyperscalers and Global Systems Integrators

Cloud Opportunity Expected to Increase Once DOGE Disruption Subsides

The U.S. federal government will need modern cloud services to be most efficient, regardless of DOGE-driven changes

Rolling pockets of chaos and an overall cloud of uncertainty may be the best way to describe the first two months of the new Trump administration. One upside to federal contracts is that they tend to be long-term in nature, which provides some stability for all types of vendors with existing contracts. However, the current transition has been rocky, to say the least, as contracts are getting canceled, agency staffing is reduced, and the existence of entire agencies is called into question.
 
Beyond the distinct financial impacts that are occurring to many federal systems integrators (FSIs) and IT vendors, the overall uncertainty about future changes has complicated government contractors’ ability to conduct business as usual. Short-term uncertainty will likely persist, but eventually we will see a silver lining for the ecosystem of IT providers catering to the needs of the U.S. federal government. The government may become a more streamlined entity, in all respects, but IT will need to remain at the forefront of U.S. government operations.
 
Differences of opinion on optimal levels of funding will persist, but most people concur that the IT infrastructure supporting many core government agencies is antiquated and long overdue for upgrade. After the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) completes its cost-cutting and agency reorganizations, the overall approach to modernizing those systems will come into greater clarity, but third parties including FSIs and IT vendors like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Google and Oracle will all likely be a part of the solution enabling the reformed federal government to modernize and play an ongoing role eliminating waste, fraud and abuse using a refreshed IT infrastructure environment.
 

Explore the expected impact of DOGE on federal systems integrators and how it could shape the technology landscape


 

Vendors hope federal spending materializes after the fog of dismantling and reducing headcount dissipates

Reducing the size of the federal workforce was an immediate focus for DOGE. With the “Fork in the Road” email sent by the Office of Personnel Management to encourage staff resignations and the nonvoluntary firing of workers across civilian agencies, the total number of employees shed from the federal workforce is estimated to have surpassed 100,000 in the first two months of the Trump presidency.
 
The entire federal workforce still totals more than 3 million, excluding 1.3 million active military personnel, and additional cuts are a certainty. Early in the formation of DOGE, the idea of cutting up to 75% of federal workers was floated, which could be far-fetched in reality. Regardless, it is clear the workforce-reduction efforts will continue to be a focus as DOGE expands its reach to additional government agencies and pushes further than just the probationary employees that made up the bulk of early reductions.
 
As headcount reductions continue, cloud and software vendors could assist the administration with those cuts while, at the same time, be impacted by the fallout of those cuts. On Workday’s FY4Q25 earnings call, CEO Carl Eisenbach painted the impact of DOGE in an opportunistic light, stating: “In fact, the majority of them [federal IT systems] are still on-premise, which means they’re inefficient. And as we think about DOGE and what that could potentially do going forward, if you want to drive efficiency in the government, you have to upgrade your systems. And we find that as a really rich opportunity.”
 
If, in the era of DOGE, government agencies undertake new, or continue existing, efforts to modernize IT systems and adopt cloud-enabled solutions, it would certainly be a big opportunity not just for Workday, but for the entire federal IT contractor market. The certainty of that opportunity is still questionable, however, given the rapidity with which major changes to how government operates are occurring. Any technology opportunities with USAID (United States Agency for International Development), for instance, are now dubious given the speed with which the agency has been dissolved, even as legal challenges abound.
 
Additional rapid changes will occur with the Department of Education given President Trump’s clear directive to new Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to dismantle the agency. On ServiceNow’s 4Q24 earnings call, CFO Gina Mastantuono noted some of this uncertainty while also remaining optimistic about the federal opportunity, stating the company’s guidance reflects a stronger U.S. federal performance in the back half of 2025, given changes brought on by the administration.

A build-it-yourself approach could challenge packaged IT solutions

DOGE head Elon Musk has clearly employed many of the same techniques and strategies he has used in the past, such as sending a “Fork in the Road” email to Twitter employees and requiring them to send a weekly email of their accomplishments after he purchased Twitter (now called X). With that in mind, it is relevant to think about the approaches to IT that Musk has used as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX for clues about what might occur in the U.S. federal space.
 
For some of the most important mission-critical IT and software decisions at Tesla and SpaceX, Musk deployed a proprietary software package that is shared by the companies to manage core manufacturing and sales, CRM and financial processes. Instead of utilizing a prebuilt solution from the likes of SAP or Oracle, internal teams at SpaceX and Tesla built, customized and manage their own ERP solution named WARPDRIVE. Musk could very well encourage a similar approach in federal agencies, either by licensing WARPDRIVE to those agencies or by directing more proprietary programs to be custom-built to reduce expenditures and theoretically achieve a superior technological solution. Either option would be challenging to implement but remains within the realm of possibility and would effectively reduce the addressable market for third-party IT solutions.
 

Watch Now: Deep Dive into Generative AI’s Impact on the Cloud Market in 2025

Scaling back new and existing awards will stifle revenue for cloud vendors in the short term

In the U.S. federal sector, SIs are a key conduit for how cloud and software companies capture opportunities. The opportunity pipeline and associated timeline for deals is notoriously long for federal spending, but the total opportunity has already decreased in size based on the cuts made by DOGE. Some of the strategies and actions recently used by leading SIs in the federal space are discussed in TBR’s special report, Leading Federal Systems Integrators React to U.S. Department of Government Efficiency. As outlined in the special report, all 12 of the leading federal SIs are looking to reduce expenses and prepare for a slowing of revenue streams in the near term. After a period of federal investment and expansion, this certainly is a change in trajectory for their businesses. In addition to making similar cost reductions, all 12 vendors are also doubling down on their competitive differentiation to secure growth moving forward. All of the recent market shifts, including security, AI and digital transformation, have led FSIs to reinvest in capabilities that provide the best opportunities for long-term expansion.
 
In the short term, even existing contracts with the federal government are subject to reductions or termination, which impacts not only the SI but also the IT vendors that have secured subawards to provide their technology as part of the overall engagement. One example TBR cited in the special report was the $1.5 billion award Leidos has with the Social Security Administration (SSA), which includes subawards for Pegasystems, AWS and multiple other IT vendors. The Leidos deal was scaled back by DOGE, marking the beginning of the disruption to awards with SIs and subawards with IT vendors. SSA represents a small portion of the federal budget, so when DOGE looks to larger agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services for cost reductions and efficiencies, the impact on the federal SIs and supporting IT vendors will be even greater.
 
In terms of the scale of revenue at stake, AWS alone has won close to $500 million in subaward contracts in the last three fiscal years. That does not directly translate into revenue, however, as the money still needs to be outlaid, a process that is even more tenuous given the current spending environment and actions taken by the DOGE team. In addition to deals tied to FSIs, cloud vendors and software vendors also have direct deals/prime awards with federal agencies that are at greater risk. AWS, for instance, has won a total of $445 million in prime award contracts over the past three fiscal years.
 
Most of those awards are multiyear contracts that are not guaranteed, and the revenue could be reduced or not disbursed. In fact, only $104 million of those awards to AWS have been outlaid, meaning the balance, more than $340 million, could be impacted. It is also important to note these figures only reflect past deals; we anticipate the new federal deal pipeline for vendors like AWS to shrink due to uncertainty and the administration’s focus on cost reductions.

Big cloud deals such as JWCC and Stargate are expected to proceed without significant funding impacts

The impacts of DOGE should be widespread throughout the government, but we expect the top federal IT opportunities, the Stargate Project and the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract vehicle, to avoid major funding challenges. Though both projects are in the early stages and still subject to competitive jockeying between technology providers to secure task orders, we expect the funding to remain available even amid broader spending reductions.
 
The JWCC was announced in 2022 with a total of $9 billion in funding available to Oracle, Microsoft, AWS and Google Cloud. Oracle has been a leading provider under the contract to date. Roughly $2.5 billion has been awarded to the five vendors thus far in the contract, leaving more than $6 billion in additional task orders in the entire project. The spending bill passed in mid-March to avoid a federal shutdown illustrates the appetite to sustain, if not increase, defense spending. All the participants in JWCC have donated to and publicly supported the administration, which could solidify the longevity of the engagement.
 
Stargate was introduced by President Trump in the early days of his presidency, indicating that the project is likely to proceed in some fashion regardless of any budgetary pressure. The project will be a joint venture with OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to initially build a $100 billion data center in Texas. Over the next four years, the project aims to build additional large-scale data centers, with a total of $500 billion in funding, making it the largest centralized data center investment in history. The funding includes significant financial backing from the U.S. government, with contributions from SoftBank, a firm known for its long-term investment strategies. OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX are the initial equity investors, while Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA and OpenAI have been named as technology partners and will have some involvement in the project.

Modern cloud IT solutions should have an elevated role in the restructured federal government

The headcount reductions, eliminations of agencies, and overall uncertainty will disrupt business as usual in the U.S. federal sector at least through the end of 2Q25. Once the new, smaller and streamlined structure emerges, we expect the value of modern IT solutions to be recognized and spending to resume and even increase compared with the prior trajectory. Having fewer human resources, likely fewer skilled IT professionals, and an altered view of budgeting and ROI for all initiatives, IT included, all amplify the value that can be added by modernizing the infrastructure and solutions that support the mission of government agencies.
 
Across fragmented environments, many of which are still traditional on premises and based on aging technology, consolidation and use of government-grade cloud delivery can improve performance and reduce the total cost to deliver even over a relatively short three-to-five-year time frame. On the commercial side, many of the organizations we speak with note that the simplification of their IT environments is one of the strongest drivers of cloud adoption. AI and generative AI capabilities add to the benefits that can now be enabled. And for government agencies, preexisting data protocols and procedures increase their readiness to apply next-generation data analysis and AI. We see the business use cases for AI becoming more compelling on the commercial side, which bodes well for adding real value in the U.S. federal sector as it adapts to a more streamlined way of operations.

2024-2029 Devices Market Forecast

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TBR expects cyclical PC market dynamics and AI adoption to drive a single-digit devices CAGR from 2024 to 2029

After declining for several quarters due to market saturation and tightened corporate IT budgets, PC demand is gradually recovering, particularly on the commercial side of the market as organizations begin to refresh their fleets of devices. TBR expects the devices market to grow at roughly a 2.7% CAGR from 2024 to 2029 as this recovery in PC demand is supplemented by growing smartphone and tablet revenue. TBR also expects demand for AI advisory and consultancy services will increase as organizations invest in implementing AI across IT infrastructure and client devices.
 
The proliferation of AI across the IT space presents devices vendors with a range of growth opportunities. PC OEMs will remain focused on driving AI PC adoption and gradually increasing these devices as a mix of total PC shipments to drive long-term revenue growth and average revenue per unit (ARPU) expansion. To help speed this adoption and increase services revenue, vendors will also continue to build out suites of services designed to help organizations take advantage of the productivity gains offered by AI PCs. TBR expects vendors to continue to increase their non-PC revenue mix, capitalizing on growth opportunities presented by AI and sheltering their top lines and margins from potential fluctuations in the PC market.
 

Graph: Devices Market Share, 2024 and 2029 (Source: TBR)

Devices Market Share, 2024 and 2029 (Source: TBR)

Dell’s strong direct sales motion will help it maintain its top position in PC services revenue through 2029

PC services revenue is closely correlated with PC hardware revenue, but revenue recognition is often deferred. As a result, the trends in the overall devices market are slower to materialize in the PC services segment. PC sales declined for several quarters throughout 2022 and 2023, offering vendors less opportunity to attach services and constraining revenue growth in this segment. As 2025 progresses and PC unit shipments continue to expand year-to-year, PC services revenue growth momentum will gradually accelerate. Recovery in the commercial PC space will boost PC services performance, as commercial PCs carry higher services attach rates than their consumer counterparts.
 
Vendors will remain focused on mitigating the impacts of negative margin pressures on PC hardware by continuing to focus on increasing their PC services revenue mix relative to PC hardware revenue, with an emphasis on sustainability, cybersecurity and predictive analytics.
 
As AI becomes increasingly prevalent in the devices space, vendors will also continue to promote offerings designed to help organizations effectively adopt AI infrastructure and AI-enabled end-user devices. Offerings such as Lenovo’s AI Fast Start program and Dell Technologies’ Implementation Services for Microsoft Copilot are both designed to help organizations take advantage of the productivity gains that AI PCs offer.
 

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Although China is a weak market for some vendors, TBR expects Lenovo to take advantage of AI PC opportunities in the country to expand APAC revenue

TBR expects the APAC devices market to grow at a 2.7% CAGR from 2024 to 2029 — a rate on par with the global devices market.
 
Over the last several quarters, vendors such as Apple and HP Inc. have reported China as being a particularly weak market for their devices businesses due to persistent softness in demand.
 
TBR expects that among the vendors included in this forecast, Lenovo will reap the greatest benefit from recovering PC demand in China due to its already large market share and its AI PC strategy in the country. In May 2024 Lenovo rolled out a lineup of devices in the country it dubbed its “five-feature” AI PCs, including a personal agent and local large language model (LLM). The company reported strong initial uptake of these devices during its 2Q24 and 3Q24 earnings calls, and TBR expects ongoing momentum in China will help drive Lenovo’s PC segment and top-line growth throughout the forecast period.