Gartner Inc. today issued another forecast on global information technology spending, saying enterprises will splash out a combined $3.8 trillion on tech hardware, software and services in 2019.

That would represent a 3.2 percent increase on IT spending in the previous year, which Gartner puts down to growth in cloud computing, data centers and the “internet of things.”

Interestingly, Gartner said worldwide IT spending is shifting gradually away from “saturated markets” such as smartphones and tablets. Instead, the focus is more on areas that can help companies further their business operations, Gartner said.

The analyst firm said companies are more interested in spending money on cloud services, data center infrastructure and IoT, since these all have the potential to improve business efficiencies by outsourcing tasks that were previously done on-premises. IoT technologies can help to boost visibility into business operations and supply chains, while spending on cloud and data centers will add to enterprises’ capabilities in data analysis and storage.

The increased spending forecast might surprise some in light of issues such the ongoing trade war between China and the U.S., Brexit and general concerns over the economy. But Gartner said there’s reason to be optimistic that the IT sector at least, will continue to grow.

“IT is no longer just a platform that enables organizations to run their business on, it is becoming the engine that moves the business,” John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement. “As digital business and digital business ecosystems move forward, IT will be the thing that binds the business together.”

Digging deeper into the numbers, Gartner says worldwide spending on enterprise software will grow by 8.5 percent in 2019,  to $431 billion. And in 2020 spending will rise by an additional 8.2 percent, to $466 billion in total. Data center systems spending will see growth of 11.3 percent in 2019, before declining in 2020. IT services spending will also see significant growth.

Meanwhile, global spending on smartphones will also rise by 4.2 percent, Gartner said. This spending will primarily be driven by replacement cycles in the U.S. and China. However, overall spending on devices will grow at a slower rate of just a half-percent, Gartner warned.

“In addition to buying behavior changes, we are also seeing skills of internal staff beginning to lag as organizations adopt new technologies, such as IoT devices, to drive digital business,” said Lovelock. “Nearly half of the IT workforce is in urgent need of developing skills or competencies to support their digital business initiatives. Skill requirements to keep up, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, API and services platform design and data science, are changing faster than we’ve ever seen before.”

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