As Digital Infrastructure Expands, Resilience Cannot Be Left Behind
JOHNSTON, R.I., USA – 16 Sept. 2026 – As the pace of data center and digital infrastructure development continues to accelerate, organizations are investing in resilience to protect this crucial industry, according to new research from Economist Enterprise, sponsored by FM. Yet the global survey of 1,800 senior executives found a significant preparedness gap: only around 30% of organizations test compound-shock scenarios, despite increasingly interconnected risks across cyber, energy, climate, supply-chain and other systems.
At the same time, organizations across the digital infrastructure ecosystem are under pressure to move quickly, from developers and operators to tenants, investors and the partners that support them. The opportunity is to strengthen long-term preparedness as they grow, manage costs and scale new technologies, helping ensure resilience and protection measures remain top of mind throughout every stage of a project’s lifecycle.
The global survey—covering 21 markets—found a persistent tension between resilience and near-term business priorities. While 75% said they have dedicated resilience funding in place, nearly seven in 10 respondents (69%) cite short-term financial and growth targets as a barrier to strengthening resilience further.
For many data center tenants, growth, efficiency and AI-related priorities can sometimes compete with longer-term resilience objectives, underscoring the challenge of balancing immediate business demands with future preparedness.
The research shows the most significant disruptions increasingly emerge when risks interact, creating the potential for operational, financial and growth impacts that are difficult to anticipate when risks are assessed in isolation.
“The digital infrastructure economy is moving extraordinarily fast, from site selection and power procurement to construction and bringing new capacity online,” said Christopher Dempsey, senior vice president, FM Intellium. “As organizations scale, the challenge is not simply managing individual risks, but understanding how cyber, energy, climate and supply-chain disruptions can interact across increasingly interconnected systems. Resilience needs to keep pace with growth and inform critical decisions early.”
The research comes as digital infrastructure becomes increasingly critical to business activity and increasingly interconnected with energy systems, supply chains and other physical infrastructure. More than nine in 10 respondents (91%) said they had experienced a material disruption during the past five years.
Cyber risk remains one of the most widely recognized threats, with 88% of respondents saying cyber-attacks could have a systemic impact on digital infrastructure and 87% identifying cyber-attacks as a likely source of disruption. In response, 91% of organizations are implementing cyber-security measures.
Energy availability is also emerging as a major challenge. More than three-quarters of respondents (77%) identified grid capacity constraints as both a likely source of disruption and a potential systemic challenge and 87% are adopting energy demand management strategies.
Despite the range of risks organizations face, the research suggests preparedness for multiple simultaneous disruptions remains less developed. This leaves many organizations testing individual threats in isolation, even as digital infrastructure becomes more exposed to cascading risks across cyber, energy, climate, supply-chain and operational systems.
“Our research shows how a single constraint, such as limited grid capacity or water scarcity, can have a cumulative, knock-on effect across the digital infrastructure ecosystem,” said Jonathan Birdwell, global head of thought leadership at Economist Enterprise.
“The challenge is that each stakeholder in the value chain is more focused on securing their own facility or connection, whereas genuine resilience requires understanding how risks interact across the system. It also requires balancing the pace of growth with long-term constraints such as energy, land and technology. Closing the gap between where risk lives—at the level of the system—and where it is managed will be a defining challenge for the industry over the next decade,” added Birdwell.
Explore the research: https://insights.economistenterprise.com/technology-innovation/built-for-what's-next/designing-resilience-into-digital-infrastructure
About the research
Built for what’s next is an Economist Enterprise research program, sponsored by global property insurer FM. It examines how risks across energy, people and technology combine to disrupt digital infrastructure, and how organizations can prepare for those shocks.
The analysis is based on expert interviews with global industry experts, an expert panel discussion and a survey of 1,800 senior executives from across the data-centre value chain in 21 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the UAE, the UK and the US. The survey was conducted in February and April 2026.
The program is part of Economist Enterprise Resilient Futures leadership initiative, which aims to equip policy and business leaders with the evidence and clear thinking they need to abandon endless crisis management in favor of systemic redesign.
About FM
Established nearly two centuries ago, FM is a leading mutual insurance company whose capital, scientific research capability and engineering expertise are solely dedicated to property risk management and the resilience of its policyholder-owners. These owners, who share the belief that the majority of property loss is preventable, represent many of the world’s largest organizations, including one of every four Fortune 500 companies. They work with FM to better understand the hazards that can impact their business continuity to make cost-effective risk management decisions, combining property loss prevention with insurance protection.