Data center fires and power failures have more than doubled since 2024, new incident data has revealed.. According to the Energy Incident Register, which provides an independently run public register of safety incidents in energy and grid infrastructure, the number of fires or power failures at data centers rose from just eight in 2024 to 20 in 2025 and 19 in 2026.. – Getty Images.
The Energy Incident Register now tracks data center incidents, based on public reporting, from 2010 to 2026 across 26 countries. Of 93 data center incidents in the period, 47 occurred in 2024 or later.. The US suffered the most from these incidents, with 33 incidents across the 16 year period – though this is to be expected given its market share.
The UK saw the next highest incidence rate, with 14 incidents across the period.. Some 52 of the 93 incidents were fires or thermal events, with 18 classified as major.. The most common failures were in Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPS) and battery rooms, which represent 22 of the 93 incidents.
Backup generators came next, with 15 incidents.. However, in the majority of incidents (53 of 93), no part was named in reporting.. DCD has reported on several major incidents at data centers this year, the latest being a fire at a data center in Gasan-dong, Seoul, South Korea, in September, and a fire in a Tata Communications center in India in June..
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