The critical digital infrastructure sector continues to expand strongly, but it faces growing challenges related to power, infrastructure complexity and cost, and sustainability. At the same time, uncertainty about how AI will reshape demand is complicating capacity planning and resiliency strategies. This report explores these issues and their implications for the industry in 2026 and beyond, including the concentration of high-density AI infrastructure, power demands that limit growth and strain grids, the growing relevance of carbon capture and storage, and the transition of AI automation from experimentation to operational deployment in the data center.

Introduction

At the beginning of each calendar year, Uptime Intelligence compiles a short list of trends or predictions that will be relevant to the digital infrastructure sector for the year (and years) ahead. These lists aim to highlight crucial, yet often overlooked industry topics, which encourage a closer examination. Our five predictions for 2025 have proved to be largely accurate and will remain relevant for 2026. These are summarized in Table 1.