Ready for What’s Next: Power, Pace and Performance In 2026 and Beyond

As we look ahead to 2026, one thing is clear. The foundational infrastructures that underpin our digital world are being tested like never before. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence, cloud services, edge computing and high-density digital workloads is reshaping how organisations plan, build and operate their critical estates. Nowhere is this more visible than in power demand and resilience.

We’ve also seen several major outages from AWS and Cloudflare, which caused downtime for companies and organisations, halting operations and showing just how crucial it is to have a failsafe in place to avoid downtime.

Operators and infrastructure leaders no longer have the luxury of assuming demand patterns or capacity constraints will remain stable. They must anticipate, adapt and act because the implications of getting it wrong are more serious, not just when it comes to unplanned outages but also stalled deployments and constrained growth.

Electricity demand is growing strongly across critical digital infrastructure and that trend is expected to continue into 2026 and beyond.

In 2025 and 2026, the U.S. is forecast to reach record high electricity usage, driven in part by data centres powering AI and high-compute workloads, with total consumption surpassing 4,100 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2025 and rising further in 2026, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Looking beyond regional markets, global data centre electricity consumption is expected to rise significantly through the end of the decade. Analysts from Gartner project worldwide data centre power usage climbing from an estimated 448 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 to nearly 980 TWh by 2030, driven by AI-optimised servers and increased compute density.

These are not incremental increases; they are key industry shifts in how digital services interact with grid and site power and demand infrastructure strategies capable of scale, resilience and adaptability.

Power grids, long designed for predictable loads, now face competing demands from residential, commercial and industrial growth, all while AI-driven workloads push data centre requirements into new territory. Even as renewable generation grows, traditional baseload sources and transmission infrastructure struggle to keep pace with concentrated loads.

This evolving landscape is creating a strategic challenge for infrastructure owners. The challenge is now in how to align growing compute requirements with what the grid can reliably support, without risking uptime or compliance.

For many organisations, part of the answer lies in resilience, whether that’s through grid reinforcement, on-site generation or smart integration of backup systems, but it requires a proactive rather than reactive stance.

Organisations have come to expect ever-higher performance from digital infrastructure. AI use cases alone, from machine learning training to real-time inference at the edge, are pushing power densities and reliability expectations to new heights.

This shift isn’t theoretical as operators increasingly report power and energy concerns as central to uptime strategy. According to the Uptime Institute’s 2025 Global Data Centre Survey, power systems remain a top focus for resiliency planning as workloads intensify and efficiency plateaus.

Yet, despite improvements in equipment and design, the complexity of modern architectures, combined with external stressors like grid volatility and supply constraints, means the risk vector is widening. A mature infrastructure strategy must therefore incorporate deep insight into current performance and a roadmap for future capability.

For decision-makers responsible for mission-critical systems, infrastructure needs to evolve quickly and intelligently.
Here are key strategic priorities:

1. Treat Power as a Strategic Asset, Not a Utility Line Item

Power capability drives uptime, performance and growth. Leadership teams must quantify and plan for power needs with the same discipline applied to compute, storage and network strategies.

2. Integrate Forecasting With Infrastructure Planning

With data centre electricity use poised to double in the next decade, forecasting must feed into every infrastructure decision, from site selection to capacity buildout.

3. Optimise Legacy Assets to Support Modern Demands

Outdated UPS systems, switchgear and backup power components represent unmanaged risk. Modernisation and optimisation extend asset life without wholesale replacement, but require targeted engineering and lifecycle planning.

4. Design for Resilience Across the Full Stack

Performance isn’t just power, it’s cooling, network redundancy, compliance, safety systems and operational support. A holistic view, integrated early in design, reduces risk and improves outcomes.

5. Partner for Delivery Confidence

Complex infrastructure programmes benefit from aligned partners who bring mechanical, electrical and delivery expertise together. One-accountable partners reduce friction and drive consistency across planning, fabrication and deployment.

The world isn’t slowing down in 2026 and neither will the pressures shaping digital operations. Power, pace and performance are interconnected imperatives and success in this next era of infrastructure won’t come from incremental upgrades alone.

It will come from a strategy that’s clear, data-driven, risk-aware and aligned to organisational goals.
At Durata, we help organisations understand where they stand today, what they need tomorrow and how to build infrastructure capable of delivering both performance and resilience over the long term.