Two countries divided by a common cloud: What UK and US IT spending intent reveals about the future of tech

AI is all the rage on both sides of the Atlantic, but the opportunities for UK and US IT leaders are markedly different

The latest end-user spending-intent data from UK and US IT leaders reveals that the future of tech is not all about buying AI. Operationalising, governing and securing it are just as important.

Artificial intelligence may dominate headlines, but the latest Computing research from the UK and US suggests a more nuanced reality. AI is undeniably shaping technology strategy, but it is not where most organisations are spending most of their money. Instead, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, governance and operational efficiency continue to command the largest shares of IT budgets – and that’s an important distinction.

This latest research reveals two markets pursuing similar goals through different routes. Both see AI as strategically important. Both expect technology budgets to grow. Both are looking for productivity gains and operational improvements. Yet the opportunities emerging for IT leaders look markedly different on either side of the Atlantic.

AI dominates the conversation, but not the budget

One of the most surprising findings is how modest AI spending remains.

Nearly half of UK respondents allocate less than 5% of their IT budget to AI-related initiatives, while nearly 62% of US respondents do the same. In both markets, AI remains a relatively small budget category compared with cloud services and cybersecurity.

The implication is that IT leaders and end-user companies are not looking for dramatic AI transformation programmes; they are looking for practical outcomes. The strongest demand is centred around employee productivity, business process automation, IT operations and data analysis rather than speculative moonshot initiatives.

In other words, organisations want to work with partners who can connect AI to measurable business value.

America's AI advantage is governance, not adoption

At first glance the US market appears further ahead in AI maturity, but the data suggests something more nuanced.

The gap is not primarily about deployment; both the USA and UK remain largely in evaluation, pilot or limited-production phases. The real difference lies in governance.

US organisations are substantially more likely to have established AI frameworks, formal policies, governance committees and audit controls. They are investing heavily in the organisational infrastructure required to scale AI safely.

The conclusion for IT leaders on both sides of the Atlantic is that, when seeking to scale AI responsibly, the priority has to be building the governance first: clear policies, risk management, compliance and accountability.

As AI software becomes more widely available, the challenge is less about choosing tools and more about establishing how they should be used, who is responsible and how risks will be managed.

But what about the UK market? While also acknowledging governance’s importance, our UK respondents appear more focused on immediate efficiency gains and cost management. These leaders show a stronger interest in software development use cases, cost reduction and operational optimisation. The emphasis is less on transforming the organisation and more on improving it.

Security remains the biggest spending priority

If AI is the headline story, cybersecurity remains the underlying business reality.

The research repeatedly shows security outranking or matching AI as a major technology priority. Even among organisations actively investing in AI, cybersecurity continues to attract larger and more established spending commitments.

The US market appears particularly security-focused. American organisations dedicate larger proportions of their budgets to cybersecurity and identify cyber resilience as a leading investment area for 2027.

The implication for IT leaders is that enthusiasm for AI should not eclipse the established priority of cyber resilience. The budget challenge is not simply how much to invest in AI, but how to pursue its benefits while maintaining the security foundations on which the organisation depends.

Partner preferences reveal different approaches to sourcing IT expertise

Deciding how to source technology and expertise matters as much as deciding what to buy, making the study’s findings about how organisations intend to consume technology just as if not more revealing than the AI takeaways.

American respondents demonstrate far greater reliance on MSPs, VARs, security consultants and AI consultants. British respondents, by contrast, show stronger preference for direct engagement with cloud providers and specialist technology consultants.

The difference suggests two distinct approaches to sourcing IT expertise.

In the US, partners increasingly function as operational extensions of customer organisations. Their role extends beyond implementation into governance, optimisation, compliance and ongoing management.

In the UK, partners remain influential but are more often helping customers optimise technology investments, while internal IT teams retain ongoing operational responsibility.

APAC adds a third channel model

APAC complicates this transatlantic picture. It is too diverse to treat as a single comparable market, but Computing research suggests that its defining characteristic is not simply AI adoption; rather, the simultaneous construction of the infrastructure, skills and governance required to support it.

Singapore represents the mature end of that spectrum. Research covering its financial institutions found nearly two-thirds already using AI in production, while 73% had deployed or improved AI applications in payments. Yet 54% cited specialist talent shortages and 52% budget constraints.

The question is how these companies can access the combination of cloud, security, compliance and operational expertise needed to support these applications.

India brings the infrastructure beneath AI applications into focus. Its IT spending is expected to reach $176.3bn in 2026, alongside a substantial pipeline of AI infrastructure and datacentre investment. The planning agenda extends below the application layer to GPU systems, high-density infrastructure, cooling, cloud operations, security monitoring and data governance, creating a whole new set of concerns for local IT leaders.

Across Southeast Asia, meanwhile, sovereignty and localisation are becoming commercial requirements rather than policy abstractions. The result is a third channel model alongside America’s services-intensive ecosystem and Britain’s platform-led pragmatism: an APAC market in which partners increasingly act as infrastructure builders, regional delivery engines and ecosystem orchestrators.

For IT leaders whose organisations are already present in or are looking to expand to Asia, this makes regional delivery capabilities part of the sourcing decision.

Different routes to the same destination

Despite the differences, the US and UK markets share more similarities than differences.

Both continue to wrestle with AI readiness. Both cite skills shortages as a concern. Both are modernising infrastructure while trying to control costs. Both expect technology budgets to increase, but generally in measured increments rather than dramatic jumps.

Most importantly, none of the research shows runaway AI spending. Instead, what emerges is a picture of increasingly mature buyers.

These organisations are no longer interested in technology for technology's sake. They want business outcomes. They want resilience. They want governance. They want efficiency. They want measurable returns.

IT’s priority going forward, then, is not simply to buy more software licences, but to make technology investments deliver measurable business value. That means managing complexity: governing AI, securing environments, modernising infrastructure, controlling cloud costs and proving the value of those decisions.

The data suggests organisations on both sides of the Atlantic have already decided AI belongs in their future. The crucial question is no longer whether they will adopt it; it is how they will make it work, and who they trust to help them deliver.