WTO More Than Doubles 2026 Trade Growth Forecast as AI Hardware Demand Surges

Global goods trade is on course for a much stronger year than expected, with AI infrastructure spending helping absorb the economic shock of war in the Middle East. On October 8, the World Trade Organization raised its 2026 growth forecast to 3.9% from 1.9%, crediting both hardware demand and supply chains’ adaptation to disruption.

The revision more than doubles the WTO’s initial spring prediction. It covers merchandise trade—the exchange of goods—not services. The upgrade therefore measures a stronger outlook for physical shipments, with semiconductors and servers among the products driving the change, rather than a forecast for every kind of international business.

Hardware demand reaches the trade ledger

Global merchandise trade grew 3.5% in the first half of 2026, according to the WTO. Demand for AI-enabling goods, including semiconductors and servers, accounted for 47% of that growth. That is a share of the increase in trade, not a claim that AI hardware represented nearly half of all goods traded.

Trade in those AI-enabling products rose 67% from a year earlier, accelerating beyond the already rapid expansion of 2024 and 2025. The WTO attributed the increase to strong investment in AI-related infrastructure: spending on the buildout is translating into more trade in the equipment needed to support it.

The 2026 forecast revision

Global merchandise trade growth

1.9%→3.9%

%

The WTO lifted its full-year goods-trade growth forecast from its initial spring estimate.

Other suppliers cushion the energy shock

The stronger outlook does not mean the conflict’s trade effects have disappeared. Oil, gas and fertilizer trade through the Persian Gulf was disrupted after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began in February. The WTO says supply chains adapted to the resulting disruptions in energy and fertilizer markets.

Middle Eastern exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, fell 47% in the first half of the year. Crude oil exports from the region dropped by nearly a quarter. Those declines show the scale of the regional supply shock behind the WTO’s more optimistic global headline.

Shipments from other suppliers helped limit the overall decline to roughly 1% for LNG and about 6% for crude, the WTO said. AI demand was thus not the only offset: replacement energy shipments also reduced the global impact of sharply lower exports from the Middle East.

The upgrade extends into 2027

The WTO also raised its 2027 merchandise trade growth forecast to 4.1%, from 2.9% predicted in March. Its accompanying outlook puts global GDP growth at 2.6% in 2026 and 2.9% in 2027. These remain projections, with the conflict expected to weigh on trade through higher energy prices and disrupted transport routes.