Global semiconductor market to reach $1.6 trillion in 2026

Global semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $1.6 trillion in 2026, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company. This marks a 92% increase from the 2025 revenue of $809 billion. In 2027, global semiconductor revenue is expected to total $1.9 trillion.

According to Ben Lee, director analyst at Gartner, the semiconductor industry is entering a fundamentally new phase of growth. “The pace of industry expansion is accelerating dramatically, driven by sustained investment in AI infrastructure and a stronger than anticipated memory-pricing cycle. As AI infrastructure scales, it is not only reshaping investment across the semiconductor ecosystem but also redefining the industry’s application mix,” Lee said.

According to Lee, the AI data centre ecosystem is expected to grow from 36.5% of semiconductor revenue in 2026 to more than 53% by 2030, underscoring a structural shift in where semiconductor value is created and how demand is evolving across the industry.

Gartner predicts that memory revenue will total $837 billion in 2026 and surpass $1 trillion in 2027. Memory is the primary contributor to semiconductor industry growth this year and is forecast to account for 54% of total semiconductor revenue, up from 27% in 2025.

DRAM revenue is forecast to increase 246.6% in 2026, while NAND flash revenue is expected to grow 371.9%. Although additional capacity is expected to enter the market in 2027, supply–demand conditions are projected to remain tight as AI infrastructure deployments continue to increase memory consumption.

As AI clusters become larger, faster and more power-intensive, they require increasing investment in CPUs, networking silicon, power management, analog devices and optical interconnect technologies.

“AI is expanding the semiconductor opportunity across the entire infrastructure stack rather than benefiting a single device category. Excluding memory, Gartner forecasts semiconductor revenue to grow from $589 billion in 2025 to $718 billion in 2026, an increase of 21.9%, and reach $864 billion in 2027,” Lee said.

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