After a period of relatively sluggish growth, both planned and actual activity in private capital expenditure in Australia have grown quite quickly in recent quarters.
One of the big drivers has been in the information technology industry, and more specifically, data centres — the facilities needed to power widespread usage of artificial intelligence, or AI.
AI is extremely resource-intensive when it comes to processing demand. When completed, these data centres will help power the rise of AI in Australia and, in our view, signal an expectation that AI utilisation will increase.
The rate of growth suggests that when businesses move toward AI, they will likely have the firepower needed to test new ways to increase productivity.
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Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show IT industry capital expenditure grew 38.3 per cent through 2025.
As a share of total non-mining expenditure, the subsector has grown from around 7 per cent in 2023 to around 13 per cent as at the end of 2025.
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That growth is not insignificant for the broader economy, though in the short term will not be reflected in gross domestic product outcomes due to the import-intensiveness of the investment.
And it goes back to the expectation of increased AI utilisation pushing businesses to invest. That investment growth will facilitate increases in AI utilisation in Australia.
Adelaide Timbrell is a Senior Economist at ANZ
