European national grid operators are advised to adopt proposed grid code requirements to protect their infrastructure from risks, such as data center activity, even though Commission action on the issue has stalled.
Uptime Intelligence looks beyond the more obvious trends of 2026 and examines some of the latest developments and challenges shaping the data center industry.
Uptime Intelligence’s predictions for 2025 are revisited and reassessed with the benefit of hindsight.
Competition for grid power is increasing; data center operators need to use reserved grid power responsibly — to support business objectives, maintain strong relationships with authorities and avoid negative publicity.
Uptime's 2025 cooling survey found that fewer respondents cited sustainability as a primary driver for direct liquid cooling (DLC). Gradual advancement of DLC plans may be refining operator understanding of its incentives.
Superconducting busbars could offer a solution for delivering power to high-density racks, eliminating resistive heating and removing the need to shift to medium voltage distribution equipment.
Operators looking for low-carbon power may be assessing low-carbon hydrogen for standby or primary power. Except for niche applications, the technology is a long way from practicality.
Superconductive power cables promise faster, cheaper and simpler connections for data center operators waiting for power. They could also simplify campuses and microgrids.
In Northern Virginia and Ireland, simultaneous responses by data centers to fluctuations on the grid have come close to causing a blackout. Transmission system operators are responding with new requirements on large demand loads.
Several operators originally established to mine cryptocurrencies are now building hyperscale data centers for AI. How did this change happen?
Douglas Donnellan
Andy Lawrence
Daniel Bizo
Dr. Owen Rogers
Peter Judge
Jacqueline Davis
Max Smolaks
Rose Weinschenk
The 15th edition of the Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey highlights the experiences and strategies of data center owners and operators in the areas of resiliency, sustainability, efficiency, staffing, cloud and AI.
The data center industry is on the cusp of the hyperscale AI supercomputing era, where systems will be more powerful and denser than the cutting-edge exascale systems of today. But will this transformation really materialize?
AI training can strain power distribution systems and shorten hardware life - especially in data centers not built for dynamic workloads. Many operators may be underestimating these risks during design and capacity planning.
In 2025, three US states passed legislation to manage data center access to energy and water resources, protect residential electricity rates and mitigate electrical grid instability - which may prompt other states to follow suit.
Training large transformer models is different from all other workloads - data center operators need to reconsider their approach to both capacity planning and safety margins across their infrastructure.
Jay Dietrich
Dr. Rand Talib
Dr. Tomas Rahkonen