Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference, 2026 India: Day 1 Highlights

June 2 : We are bringing you news and highlights from the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference, taking place this week in Mumbai, India. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference.

On Day 1 of the conference, we are exploring how to navigate the hype to ensure I&O serves as a value-driving function of AI, discussing the future of cloud in 2030 and highlighting the top technology trends shaping the future of AI infrastructure strategy development. 

Key Announcements

1. Gartner Forecasts End-User Public Cloud Spending in India to Surpass $17 Billion in 2026

2. Gartner Opening Keynote: Navigating the Hype: Strategic Roadmap to I&O Success

Presented by Autumn Stanish, Director Analyst, Gartner and Paul Delory, VP Analyst, Gartner

Agentic AI is a fundamental shift for infrastructure and operations , demanding new operational paradigms. In this session, Autumn Stanish, Director Analyst and Paul Delory, VP Analyst at Gartner, shared a roadmap on how I&O can be a value-driving function of AI.

Key Takeaways

• “Gartner predicts AI agents will be implemented in 60% of all IT operations tools by 2028.”

• “The best way for I&O leaders to get started with agentic AI is with practical, foundational use cases in IT operations. This means identifying a narrow domain where a task requires a certain degree of complex judgment and doesn’t have predefined outcomes.”

• “Continuous operations is the key to providing guardrails around AI agents and giving them structure. A staged, fully automated delivery pipeline with built-in guardrails and test suites must be developed to make sure everything is working at each stage.”

• “I&O leaders now have the second-mover advantage. All the tools they need to do continuous operations are now readily available, and most are free and open source.”

• “The I&O identity must be shifted from service provider to platform provider, becoming the engine that delivers custom tooling and standardized platforms that truly build business value.”

3. Top Technology Trends Shaping the Future of AI Infrastructure Strategy Development

Presented by Sushovan Mukhopadhyay, Director Analyst, Gartner

In this session, Sushovan Mukhopadhyay, Director Analyst at Gartner, explored the technology trends poised to redefine AI infrastructure strategies. These trends will help I&O leaders ensure their infrastructure strategy is ready to support evolving AI demands and deliver a competitive advantage.

Key Takeaways

• “AI Infrastructure is the engine that will power the future of the AI enterprise. This involves new technologies that many organizations haven’t used before, along with new constraints.”

• Build: “Don’t bring a ‘build it and they will come’ mindset; instead create an intentional burst from cloud strategy. This enables I&O teams to move fast, keep costs low and validate engine designs for value before scaling.”

• Deploy: “AI must be deployed more as inference scales. Inference is everywhere: cloud, data center and edge environments.”

• Scale: “As AI becomes more foundational to an organization, it becomes a critical infrastructure that needs to have a high degree of resiliency, safety and compliance baked-in.”

• “Treat your AI Infrastructure platform like a product. Create a roadmap around the value it delivers today and how it will be scaled, without compromising service level objectives or scaling technical debt.”

4. The Future of Cloud, 2030

Presented by Joe Rogus, Director Analyst, Gartner

Expanding cloud adoption, accelerated by the rapid rise of AI, is set to fundamentally reshape enterprise IT, with worldwide public cloud spending projected to surpass $1 trillion by 2027. In this session, Joe Rogus, Director Analyst at Gartner, outlined how organizations can prepare for the future of cloud through 2030, as AI and cloud converge to redefine computing, operating models and business value.

Key Takeaways

• “By 2030, AI will impact all areas of computing across public cloud, on-premises and edge, and will be embedded in over 90% of cloud strategies, up from less than 10% today.”

• “Cloud providers will increasingly look to recoup massive AI investments by improving operational efficiencies, enhancing existing offerings, and adding entirely new AI-driven services.”

• “Enterprises must move beyond siloed cloud adoption toward integrated, AI-infused industry solutions that deliver measurable and unified business value.”

• “In 2030, AI-specific agents will be fundamental in enabling business so much so that over 80% of critical business activity will be enabled by AI-infused industry-specific agents.”

• “AI will naturally accelerate multicloud adoption. By 2030, over 60% of enterprises will perform intensive AI model activity in one cloud but leverage it with their data in another, up from less than 10% today.”