As data centre and digital infrastructure development accelerates, organisations are increasing investments in resilience, according to new research from Economist Enterprise, sponsored by FM. However, the global survey of 1,800 senior executives found a significant preparedness gap, with only around 30 per cent of organisations testing compound-shock scenarios despite growing interconnected risks across cyber, energy, climate and supply-chain systems.

The survey, covering 21 markets, found that organisations across the digital infrastructure ecosystem face pressure to expand quickly while managing costs, introducing new technologies and strengthening long-term preparedness.

While 75 per cent of respondents said their organisations have dedicated resilience funding, 69 per cent identified short-term financial and growth targets as a barrier to further strengthening resilience.

The study noted that growth, efficiency and artificial intelligence-related priorities can compete with longer-term resilience objectives, particularly among data centre tenants. It also highlighted that significant disruptions can emerge when multiple risks interact, creating operational, financial and growth impacts that may be difficult to anticipate when individual risks are assessed separately.

“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 organisations 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 found that 91 per cent of respondents had experienced a material disruption during the past five years, highlighting the growing exposure of digital infrastructure to interconnected operational risks.

Cyber risk remains among the most widely recognised threats. Around 88 per cent of respondents said cyber-attacks could have a systemic impact on digital infrastructure, while 87 per cent identified cyber-attacks as a likely source of disruption. In response, 91 per cent of organisations are implementing cyber-security measures.

Energy availability is also emerging as a major concern. About 77 per cent of respondents identified grid capacity constraints as both a likely source of disruption and a potential systemic challenge, while 87 per cent are adopting energy demand-management strategies.

Despite the range of risks identified, preparedness for multiple simultaneous disruptions remains less developed. The findings suggest many organisations continue to test individual threats separately, even as digital infrastructure becomes increasingly exposed to cascading risks across cyber, energy, climate, supply-chain and operational systems.

"India has a unique opportunity to build resilience into digital infrastructure from the outset. Organizations that do so will be better positioned to support growth, attract capital and navigate an increasingly complex risk environment," shared Sumit Khanna, CEO, FMIC India - Reinsurance Branch.

“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.