Microsoft and Nvidia Are the Winners in Survey of Big Tech Spenders

Microsoft and Nvidia look well positioned as the recipients of tech spending, according to a J.P. Morgan report. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

Top Wall Street firms periodically survey the executives in charge of the technology purse strings at large companies to get insights on trends, and which vendors they are spending more or less with.

Microsoft and Nvidia look well positioned in the coming years, according to the latest report from J.P. Morgan.

On Friday, the bank’s technology research team published its survey results from 168 chief information officers, or CIOs, who are responsible for $123 billion in annual enterprise tech spending.

For software “Microsoft, [Amazon.com unit] Amazon AWS, SAP, and ServiceNow stand out as enjoying a large percentage of CIOs increasing spending, whereas [Zoom Communications] and Oracle seem to be share donors,” the analysts wrote.

The CIOs said they continue to invest aggressively in artificial-intelligence technology, and AI agent projects. Many technology leaders have said agents, which are programs that have the ability to take simple directions and complete multistep tasks, will drive the next wave of tech growth.

There is a “prioritization of the emerging data layer, while also a good showing for SaaS [Software as a Service], as CIOs plan to primarily buy AI agents from app providers more so than custom building their own AI agents,” the analysts said.

The executives told J.P. Morgan that 6% of overall enterprise budgets are spent on AI hardware investments today, which will rise to 16% in three years, according to the survey. Nvidia has been the largest beneficiary from the investment in AI infrastructure.

J.P. Morgan also found the technology executives expect the rise of AI means their companies will likely reduce the size of their IT workforce over the next three to five years.

Write to Tae Kim at tae.kim@barrons.com