KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 25): Composable business will be driving investing choices for the year ahead.

The four principles of composable business modularity, autonomy, orchestration and discovery.

In a report last week, technology research and consulting firm Gartner Inc said CIOs expect more budget in 2022, and they’re spending it to fund composable business.

It said over the next year, CIOs expect IT budgets to grow 3.6% — the fastest year-over-year growth rate in more than a decade, according to the 2022 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey.

It said that is a global average, with APAC CIOs expecting the greatest change (3.9%) and North American CIOs the least (3.1%).

Gartner said this budget growth gives CIOs and technology executive leaders an opportunity to invest in new technologies.

It said most are choosing those that help guard the business against the constant volatility caused by the pandemic, trade wars, climate change and other internal and external changes.

Artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) top the list of technologies, with 48% of CIOs and technology executives having deployed or planning to deploy these technologies in the next 12 months.

Just behind AI/ML is distributed cloud (44%), secure access service edge/SASE (32%), edge computing (27%) and multi-experience development platform (25%).

Gartner said these new technology investments all support a move toward more composable business, but these investment choices face competition — most notably from cybersecurity.

The survey found when it comes to existing investments, 66% of leaders plan to increase the amount they spend on cyber/information security.