'Asia-Pacific IT spending to reach $767 billion in 2014: Gartner

IT spending in Asia-Pacific (APAC) is expected to grow 5.5% to $767 billion by next year, research firm Gartner has said.

"Spending on information technology products and services in the Asia Pacific region is forecast to grow 5.5% in 2014 to reach $767 billion, up from $727 billion this year and reach $933 billion in 2017," the firm said.

Digital Industrial Economy will be built on foundations of Nexus of Forces (that includes a confluence and integration of cloud, social collaboration, mobile and information) and the Internet of Everything by combining the physical world and the virtual, Gartner Senior VP and Global Head (Research) Peter Sondergaard said.

This results in every budget being an IT budget, every company being a technology company, every business is becoming a digital leader and every person is becoming a technology company. This is resulting in the beginning of an era, the Digital Industrial Economy, Gartner said.

"Digitalisation exposes every part of your business and its operations to these forces. It is how you reach customers and constituents, how you run your physical plant and how you generate revenue or deliver services," Sondergaard added.

In 2009, there were 2.5 billion connected devices with unique IP addresses to the Internet, most were devices people carry like mobiles and PCs. In 2020, there will be up to 30 billion devices connected with unique IP addresses, most of which will be products, Gartner said.

Gartner expects the total economic value add for Internet of Things to be $1.9 trillion in 2020, benefiting a wide range of industries, like healthcare, retail and transportation.