Computing Systems, Platforms and Technologies

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Meet the Experts

Photo of Ashish Nadkarni
Ashish Nadkarni

Group Vice President and General Manager, Worldwide Infrastructure Research

Photo of Chris Drake
Chris Drake

Senior Research Director, Compute Infrastructure and Service Provider Trends, Worldwide Infrastructure Research

Photo of Kuba Stolarski
Kuba Stolarski

Research Vice President, Compute Infrastructure and Service Provider Trends, Worldwide Infrastructure Research

Photo of Peter Rutten
Peter Rutten

Research Vice-President, Performance Intensive Computing, Worldwide Infrastructure Research



IDC's Computing Systems, Platforms and Technologies service provides continuous market data and analysis of the worldwide hardware computing platforms markets. These include network-centric platforms composed of small form factor (SFF), midsize (rack servers), and large systems deployed in datacenter and off-datacenter locations such as edge environments and in shared cloud, dedicated cloud, and noncloud infrastructure. The infrastructure industry is in a state of transition, driven by disruptive trends such as cloud computing, edge deployments, artificial intelligence (AI), silicon heterogeneity, platform specialization, software-defined infrastructure, opex delivery models, open infrastructure design, and sustainability and energy efficiency. This service provides research and analysis on how these trends are reshaping the development and evolution of new and existing system, platform, and technology markets. This service also analyzes vendor trends and strategies as well as buyer behavior.


Markets and Subjects Analyzed


  • Worldwide server market share, forecasts, and installed base
  • Scale-up and scale-out computing architecture
  • Modular systems
  • Edge computing infrastructure
  • Next-generation computing platforms
  • Vendor performance, strategies, and portfolios
  • Accelerated computing, including control plane offload mechanisms
  • Liquid cooling technologies and systems
  • Form factor trends
  • Heterogeneous computing architectures
  • PCIe, Ethernet, CXL, NVLink, NVMe-oF, Infiniband, and other fabrics

Core Research


  • Worldwide Server Market Shares and Forecast
  • Worldwide Server Installed Base Forecast
  • Silicon Heterogeneity and Impact on Computing Platforms Market
  • Accelerated Computing Market Trends and Outlook (Workload and Function Offload)
  • Fabrics and Interconnects and Associated Standards
  • End-User Adoption Trends and Sentiment
  • Product, Technology, and Industry Trends
  • Computing Component Technologies
  • Confidential and Trusted Computing: Technologies to Secure Data in Flight, in Use, and at Rest
  • Small Form Factor Trends

In addition to the insight provided in this service, IDC may conduct research on specific topics or emerging market segments via research offerings that require additional IDC funding and client investment.


Key Questions Answered


  1. What are the latest trends and innovations in computing infrastructure and technology?
  2. What are the emerging technologies that could disrupt the computing platforms industry?
  3. How will accelerated computing and AI change the industry?
  4. How will edge computing infrastructure evolve in the connected world?
  5. How are distributed computing architectures evolving?

Companies Covered