Vesper Technologies (Vespertec) has released its report on "Embracing Enterprise AI: Navigating Budget Increases, Hardware Choices, and Market Forces", revealing that over half of enterprises (54%) are reporting a 10% increase in hardware budgets to support AI initiatives.

The study, which surveyed 502 senior IT decision-makers across multiple sectors, explores the factors driving the rise in AI hardware budgets. The survey reveals that while 66% of this funding comes from budget reallocation, 32% represents an entirely new budget allocation, indicating significant new investment in AI infrastructure.

The research highlights NVIDIA's continued dominance in the AI hardware market, powering more than double the number of enterprise AI deployments as its nearest competitor. This leadership is driven by unprecedented performance requirements, particularly with its H100 Tensor Core GPUs offering up to 4x faster training for large-scale models compared to previous generations.

Sector analysis reveals technology sector firms are leading AI investment, with 75% prioritising AI initiatives, followed by financial services at 68% and education at 65%. The study also finds that 83% of organisations have already deployed AI solutions, with an additional 15% actively planning implementation. This widespread adoption is being accelerated by competitive pressures, with 86% of enterprises believing their competitors are already leveraging AI technology.

The findings also indicate a significant shift in implementation strategies, with 70% of enterprises planning to move their AI workloads to private infrastructure. This transition is driven by the need for greater control over data, compliance, and performance optimisation, particularly in highly regulated sectors like finance or healthcare.

“The increase in hardware budgets reflects a fundamental shift in how enterprises approach AI implementation,” said Allan Kaye, Co-founder and Director at Vespertec. “Organisations traditionally allocate around 4% of their budget to IT, but now they're making incremental investments to stay competitive. Enterprises are no longer just experimenting with AI—they’re making strategic infrastructure investments to support enterprise-wide AI initiatives. This trend towards tailored hardware spending, especially in private infrastructure, signals a mature phase in AI adoption, where organisations are focusing on long-term scalability and performance.”