Uptime Institute published its eighth annual report analyzing data center outages and service interruptions, examining causes, frequency, costs, and consequences affecting critical IT infrastructure worldwide.
The analysis reveals that outage frequency per site has declined for the fifth consecutive year, though improvement rates have slowed compared to previous years. Approximately one in ten organizations reported their most recent outage caused serious or severe impacts.
External Infrastructure Failures Rise
External infrastructure failures now account for a larger share of publicly reported outages. Outages linked to fiber optic and connectivity issues are increasing and more likely to cause prolonged disruptions. This shift signals a structural change in how data center operators must manage risk across distributed networks and external dependencies.
Outage Costs Continue Climbing
The financial impact of outages continues rising. In Uptime’s 2025 survey, 57 percent of respondents reported their most recent major outage cost more than $100,000. For the second consecutive year, one in five reported costs exceeding $1 million. These figures underscore the business criticality of infrastructure resilience.
Power Supply Remains Primary Cause
Power-related failures remain the leading cause of major outages. Uninterruptible power supplies, transfer switches, and generators continue to dominate the failure landscape. However, grid constraints and increased high-density workloads are creating new stress points across AI-driven environments.
Human Error and Automation Risks
Failure to follow established procedures remains the primary cause of human-error-related outages. Inconsistent or unclear processes, installation errors, and operational mistakes persist as common issues. Operators are increasingly investing in automation and control systems to manage growing complexity, yet expanded automation introduces different failure categories.
Third-Party Service Providers Account for Two-Thirds of Incidents
Over the nine years Uptime tracked publicly reported outages, third-party IT and data center service providers—including cloud and internet giants, telecommunications operators, and colocation firms—accounted for approximately two-thirds of incidents. This structural shift reflects evolving industry dependencies requiring contractual and financial adaptation.
Andy Lawrence, founding member and executive director of Uptime Intelligence, said outages increasingly stem from complex interactions between systems, software, networks, and external dependencies rather than single points of failure. “As digital infrastructure becomes more distributed and decentralized, failures often originate outside the data center itself, linked to power availability, network connectivity, or reliance on external cloud services,” Lawrence stated.
Uptime’s analysis draws from multiple sources, including public reports, media coverage, social media information, and its own surveys—such as the annual global data center survey and the 2026 data center resilience survey. Data from Uptime members, partners, and its publicly reported outage database supplement the research.
Uptime Institute maintains headquarters in New York with offices in London, São Paulo, Dubai, Riyadh, and Singapore. Full-time staff operate across more than 34 countries. A nine-page executive summary extracted from the comprehensive 29-page report is available for download. The complete 2026 Annual Outage Analysis Report is accessible to Uptime Network members and Uptime Intelligence subscribers. Media inquiries can be directed to [email protected].
