Your paycheck, your medical records, the traffic lights on your commute, the payment terminal at the grocery store: all of it runs on data, and all of that data runs on electricity.
When either fails, essential services can be disrupted. And behind almost every one of those services is a business that has to keep the power on and the data flowing, often at a steep price when it can’t.
In Uptime Institute's 2025 survey, 57 percent of respondents said their most recent major outage cost more than $100,000, while one in five reported losses exceeding $1 million, according to its 2026 Annual Outage Analysis.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that global data center electricity consumption will more than double to approximately 945 terawatt-hours by 2030.
These figures point to a growing business vulnerability. As companies become increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure, operational resilience depends on both protecting data and securing the energy required to keep it accessible.
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Business leaders can no longer afford to treat energy and data as separate infrastructure decisions.
The question is not simply whether a company has reliable electricity or secure information systems, but whether both can continue functioning together when disruption occurs.
For decades, businesses have largely approached these needs independently. Electricity is supplied through the grid, while data is increasingly stored and processed through remote cloud infrastructure.
Both arrangements have enabled significant economic growth, but they also create dependencies that organizations do not always fully understand or control.
Many businesses rely on cloud services for computing and the electricity grid for power, creating dependencies that need to be assessed together.
Uneven Distribution
The IEA estimates that nearly half of U.S. data center capacity is concentrated within five regional clusters. It also warns that approximately 20 percent of planned data center projects could face delays because of grid constraints unless those risks are addressed.
These pressures are not distributed evenly, meaning location may increasingly influence businesses' access to electricity and computing resources.
The implications extend beyond technology companies. Manufacturers depend on digital systems to coordinate production, universities rely on networked infrastructure to support teaching and research, and commercial buildings use connected technologies to manage security, communications, and daily operations.
When those systems become unavailable, the consequences can extend far beyond temporary inconvenience.
I have come to believe that one of the most overlooked weaknesses in business continuity planning is the tendency to evaluate energy reliability and data availability independently.
Both may appear adequately protected on paper, yet neither can guarantee continuity if the infrastructure connecting them has not been considered.
Where Problems Arise
A business may invest heavily in protecting its information, but those protections provide limited operational continuity if the systems required to access that information lose power (the grid goes down).
Equally, a building may have reliable backup electricity while remaining unable to access critical applications because its network connection or remote service provider has failed (the cloud goes down).
This does not mean that cloud computing or traditional electricity networks have become obsolete. Both remain essential components of modern business infrastructure.
The problem arises when organizations assume that relying on external providers is sufficient preparation for every disruption.
I believe businesses should begin by identifying which operations they cannot afford to lose.
A manufacturer may need to prioritize production controls and inventory systems, while a university might focus on campus security and research infrastructure.
Each organization requires a different assessment of what must remain operational, how long it needs to function independently, and which resources are required to support that continuity.
Operational Requirements
For some organizations, this may reveal opportunities to generate and store electricity on-site, reducing dependence on external supply during certain disruptions.
Others may benefit from keeping selected computing capabilities closer to their operations, allowing essential systems to function when connectivity to remote services is interrupted.
Neither approach is a universal solution. On-site generation requires appropriate capacity, maintenance, and storage, while local computing introduces responsibilities involving cybersecurity and hardware management.
The objective should be to determine which combination of centralized and local resources best supports an organization's operational requirements.
Data sovereignty is particularly important within this discussion. Greater local control over information should not be confused with simply greater protection.
In June 2025, the National Institute of Standards and Technology published guidance outlining 19 examples of zero-trust architectures, emphasizing the need to continuously evaluate requests for access to digital resources.
Its approach recognizes that users and devices cannot be considered trustworthy simply because of their location or previous authorization.
An Economic Dimension
A coordinated infrastructure strategy must therefore address availability and security together.
Businesses need to understand where essential data resides, who can access it, how those systems are powered, and what happens when one component becomes unavailable.
There is also an economic dimension. Infrastructure investments are often evaluated according to their immediate cost, efficiency, or expected return, but those considerations do not necessarily capture the financial consequences of a prolonged disruption of either power or data.
A lower-cost arrangement may prove expensive if it leaves critical functions exposed to downtime, while unnecessary redundancy can consume resources without delivering meaningful improvements.
I would encourage business leaders to approach this as a practical due-diligence exercise. Start by identifying essential systems, establishing their energy and computing requirements, and examining how long operations could continue if external services failed.
From there, assess whether existing backup arrangements are sufficient and where additional infrastructure could reduce exposure.
This assessment should involve facilities management, information technology, cybersecurity, and financial leadership. Decisions made independently by these departments can overlook dependencies that become apparent only when the entire operational system is considered.
The Importance of Resilient Infrastructure
The goal is not complete independence from the grid or the cloud, per se. For most organizations, that would be neither practical nor economically justified. It is to understand which capabilities should remain externally managed and which may benefit from greater local control.
As digital adoption accelerates and electricity demand increases, these considerations will become more difficult to postpone.
The companies best prepared for disruption will not necessarily be those with the largest infrastructure budgets, but those that understand which functions matter most and have coordinated the resources needed to sustain them.
Operational resilience is no longer simply a question of keeping the lights on or protecting information. It is about ensuring that the systems a business depends on can continue working together when circumstances are least predictable.
And make no mistake, truly resilient infrastructure must include both energy security and data sovereignty.
Christopher Griffin is the founder & CEO of Hover Energy, a distributed-energy company with a commercial interest in on-site infrastructure.
All opinions are the author’s own.