According to the Uptime Institute report, corporate IT workloads hosted on third-party platforms surpassed those in private data centers for the first time in 2026, reaching 46% compared to 44% in on-premise facilities. The remaining 10% of workloads are housed in server closets without dedicated rooms.
Experts project that by 2028, the share of workloads in private server rooms will remain stagnant, while the share of third-party platforms is expected to grow to 48%. This shift is driven by the decommissioning of small server rooms and standalone racks in favor of colocation, IaaS, public cloud, and SaaS solutions.
The average power density per rack exceeded 11 kW in 2026. While AI infrastructure is often associated with high density, standard hardware upgrades are the primary driver for this increase. Currently, 24% of respondents report operating racks with 30 kW or more, up from 19% the previous year.
The rapid evolution of AI models, such as the Kimi K3, necessitates frequent hardware updates that often outpace traditional depreciation cycles. Businesses are increasingly turning to service-based models to access the latest GPU platforms, such as NVIDIA HGX B300, without managing the underlying infrastructure.
The financial impact of IT outages is rising as organizations become more digitally dependent. In 2026, 71% of surveyed operators reported that their largest outage cost at least $100,000, compared to 57% in the previous year. Factors like power instability and supply chain issues remain significant risks.
