The coronavirus (COVID-19) is by far the most significant theme to affect the technology industry in 2020. COVID-19 is a major factor behind cutbacks in spending on non-critical maintenance and construction projects at the world’s data centers, but it will not affect long-term infrastructure equipment spending, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData published a fully revised report, ‘Tech, Media & Telecom Trends 2020’, report to reflect the impact of COVID-19 on 17 separate TMT sectors and the leading companies within. It discusses the short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on each sector, and ranks on a company-by-company basis the individual impact of COVID-19 alongside nine other themes that affect that sector. All sectors will be negatively impacted.

Stuart Ravens, Chief Analyst Thematic Research says, “The global demand for data storage and processing power will continue to increase exponentially. However, the future is not all rosy for the infrastructure industry. Companies will be aggressively cutting costs throughout the remainder of 2020. While core data center infrastructure may get an investment boost, non-core investments will be delayed or canceled. This might mean edge computing projects are put on hold, and investment in high-performance computing for advanced AI R&D projects may also be slashed.”