Fall 2026 | M&A Report In The Technology, Media and Telecom Industry Sector The report below gives a good overview of the Fall 2026 M&A activity in the Technology, Media and Telecom Industry Sector. Artificial intelligence infrastructure set the direction of the technology, media and telecom sector in the third quarter of 2026, but investment was unevenly distributed. Worldwide technology spending, which includes communications services, is set to reach $6.4 trillion for the full year, up 14.2% on 2025, while global advertising spend rises 11.9% to $1.3 trillion. Data center systems spending is forecast to climb 62.5% to $822 billion across the year, against 9.8% growth for devices. In the United States, all four of the largest cloud providers restated their investment plans in late July. Amazon raised its 2026 guidance to about $220 billion, Alphabet to $195 billion or more and Meta to at least $130 billion, while Microsoft's lower figure reflects a change in lease accounting rather than less spending. Together the four now guide to about $730 billion, against roughly $410 billion in 2025. In Asia, the memory shortage behind that buildout kept chip prices rising. Contract prices for DRAM (dynamic random-access memory), used as working memory, are expected to rise 13% to 18% in the third quarter, and NAND flash, used for permanent storage, is expected to rise by 10% to 15%. In Europe, rising costs began to push buyers out of the market: mobile computing unit sales are forecast to decline 6.4% in the quarter, and desktop sales by roughly 20%. Telecom moved on a slower cycle as operators shifted spending from 5G coverage toward fiber and network automation, with Verizon guiding 2026 capital expenditure of $16.0-16.5 billion. Media expanded faster, driven by a 21.3% rise in social media advertising to $394.6 billion. Across the sector, value is outpacing volume, with the gains accruing to suppliers of artificial intelligence capacity.
Posted by Dan Vermeire.
Read the Entire Fall 2026 Technology, Media and Telecom Report Here