India’s tech spending in 2026 grow 13.4%, down from 13.7% in 2025, but highest in APAC: Forrester

India’s tech spending is expected to grow 13.4% in 2026, slightly down from 13.7% in 2025, reported Forrester, Cambridge-based research firm on Thursday (March 27, 2026).

Although India’s tech spending would be the highest in the entire Asia Pacific region, rising costs and regulations would still impact real growth, it cautioned.

Escalating tech costs, volatile hardware markets, energy supply disruptions, and sovereignty mandates would erode purchasing power in the APAC region in 2026, the firm predicted.

According to Forrester, as Asia Pacific’s fastest-growing market, India is being propelled by rapid cloud adoption and data localisation rules that are driving major onshore infrastructure investment. Software investment is also rising as vendors embed AI capabilities into renewal pricing, while domestic enterprise demand continues to be the primary driver of India’s double-digit tech spending growth.

Ashutosh Sharma, vice president and research director at Forrester said, “India’s double‑digit technology spending growth is being propelled by a combination of cloud acceleration, regulatory clarity, and strong domestic demand.”

“With data localisation shaping infrastructure strategies and enterprises expanding AI‑ready platforms, the priority now is to digitise processes beyond core systems and build scalable data foundations,” he added.

Forrester estimates that the APAC region will spend over $437 billion on acquiring new technology between 2025 and 2030. Total spending on technology will grow by 9.3%, driven by investments in software, services, communications equipment, and tech outsourcing, but cost pressures (such as software inflation and hardware spikes), regulatory fragmentation, tariffs, energy shocks, uneven regional growth, and talent shortages would reduce the real impact of that investment, Forrester forecast.