The $1T digital healthcare shift and what PwC’s 2035 forecast means for providers

Healthcare is about to undergo a transformation that rivals the introduction of antibiotics or the rise of modern hospitals. A recent PwC report projects that by 2035, $1 trillion of U.S. healthcare spending will shift away from traditional facility-based care into digital-first, AI-driven systems.

That’s a massive reallocation of resources. But it raises an equally massive question: what infrastructure will support this transition? As healthcare pivots to wearables, predictive analytics, and home-based care, the foundation has to evolve too.

1. Healthcare is becoming AI-driven and data-intensive

PwC highlights how future care will be predictive, personalized, and proactive. Instead of waiting for patients to show up at the ER, doctors will intervene earlier thanks to AI-powered insights. Imagine:

• Digital twins that simulate a patient’s body to test treatment outcomes before prescribing them.
• Genomic sequencing that tailors cancer therapies to each individual’s DNA.
• Wearables and sensors streaming vital signs 24/7, flagging anomalies in real time.

These aren’t niche projects. These are expected to become mainstream by 2035. But all of them rely on data-heavy, compute-intensive workloads. Training AI models on genomic data, for example, requires GPU acceleration to crunch billions of data points in a reasonable timeframe. Without it, personalized medicine stalls at the starting line.

2. Security and compliance will define success

If data is the fuel of digital healthcare, trust is the engine. PwC’s vision involves patient information flowing across homes, clinics, devices, and AI platforms. That means protected health information (PHI) will be more exposed than ever before.

And regulators are already preparing. HIPAA isn’t going away; if anything, new compliance frameworks will raise the bar for encryption, access controls, audit trails, and breach prevention. 

Consider:

• A telehealth platform handling sensitive video consultations
• Remote monitoring tools transmitting patient heart data
• AI models using longitudinal health records to predict risk

Every one of these use cases requires bulletproof compliance. A single violation could lead to multimillion-dollar fines or worse: patient harm. That’s why security and compliance frameworks will become non-negotiable pillars of digital-first healthcare.

3. Decentralization requires hybrid and edge infrastructure

PwC predicts that hospitals will transform into “high-speed care nodes,” reserved for acute or complex interventions. Meanwhile, the bulk of care (think: routine checkups, chronic disease management, post-op monitoring) will shift into homes and smaller care settings.

Picture a future where:

• Drones deliver medication directly to patients’ doors.
• In-home diagnostic kits connect automatically to cloud-based providers.
• AI triage bots assess symptoms before a patient ever sees a clinician.

To support this decentralization, infrastructure has to stretch beyond centralized data centers. Real-time monitoring, like streaming blood sugar levels or cardiac activity, needs edge computing to process data close to the patient. At the same time, central servers are needed for deeper analytics, long-term storage, and integration across providers.

This hybrid model—a mix of edge, private cloud, and centralized environments—will become the new norm in healthcare IT.

4. Cost pressures will accelerate the shift

PwC estimates that total U.S. healthcare spending could hit $8.6 trillion by 2035. That’s more than 20% of GDP and an unsustainable trajectory. Moving $1 trillion into digital-first systems isn’t just about innovation; it’s about survival.

For IT leaders, that shift means budget reallocation. Dollars currently tied up in legacy infrastructure, manual administration, and sprawling hospital facilities will need to be redirected toward digital platforms. Organizations will have to find smart ways to invest in infrastructure that scales, automates, and secures itself.

Solution: HIPAA-compliant GPU servers on a modern hosting platform

Taken together, PwC’s vision points to a single conclusion: the future of healthcare has to be built on powerful, compliant, and flexible hosting. From AI workloads, to compliance, to decentralization—every challenge comes back to the same root need.

The solution lies in infrastructure that is:

• GPU-powered, to handle AI diagnostics, predictive analytics, and genomic-scale data.
• HIPAA-compliant, with encryption, firewalls, backups, and audit-ready controls baked in.
• Hybrid and flexible, capable of blending centralized and edge workloads without sacrificing performance.

This is where Liquid Web makes the difference. 

With GPU-enabled dedicated servers, HIPAA-ready environments, and the ability to build custom hybrid architectures, Liquid Web delivers the backbone digital healthcare requires. IT leaders don’t have to choose between performance, compliance, and flexibility. They can have all three, managed by a partner that understands mission-critical infrastructure.

The starting line is at your feet

PwC’s 2035 forecast isn’t a distant future. Digital-first, AI-driven healthcare is on the horizon, and the organizations that prepare their infrastructure now will be the ones ready to lead.

Behind every wearable, every telehealth call, and every AI prediction lies hosting infrastructure. The question is whether that foundation will be strong enough to support the trillion-dollar transformation ahead.

With HIPAA-compliant GPU servers on a modern hosting platform, organizations can move from speculation to readiness, and ensure they’re the ones shaping the future of healthcare.

Alex O’Donald is a technology sales leader passionate about transforming ideas into positive business outcomes. With a background in technology, strategy, and team leadership, he helps CloudOne Digital deliver customer-focused innovation and measurable results. Outside of work, he loves spending time lakeside with his family or riding motorcycles around the pleasant peninsulas of Michigan.