Datacenters are Having Fewer, but Bigger Failures
The Register, Wednesday, May 13th, 2026
Datacenters are becoming more resilient overall, but failures last longer and cost more when they occur.
According to the Uptime Institute, datacenters have improved their resilience over the past five years, with only half of surveyed operators experiencing outages in the past three years the lowest rate since 2020.
However, the report reveals that when failures do occur, they last longer and are more expensive to resolve, with one in five outages now exceeding $1 million in costs. The challenges stem from increased system complexity, AI-driven power-dense infrastructure, supply shortages forcing the use of secondhand hardware, and external factors like fiber cuts and stressed electrical grids.
While power-related failures remain the leading cause of disruptions, networking issues are the most frequently cited source of IT service interruptions, though software-defined networking and automated traffic rerouting have helped mitigate some risks.