By Ben Leitch – Digital Content Manager

he data centre industry has never been

According to recent industry research( LINK BELOW), 70 % of operators and contractors believe the supply chain is failing to meet demand, while 53 % fear the sector will be unable to build enough capacity to satisfy future growth. These figures should serve as a wake‐up call.

Supply chain fragility is not a new story, but it has become more acute as the industry scales. Data centres depend on highly specialised components that cannot be easily substituted or sourced locally. When lead times stretch into months or even years, projects stall, costs rise and credibility suffers.

Third, transparency matters. Operators who can demonstrate credible supply chain strategies will win trust from clients who increasingly value certainty as much as cost.

There is also a cultural shift required. The statistics are clear: a majority of operators and contractors see the supply chain as a weak link, and more than half doubt the sector’ s ability to deliver capacity at scale. Ignoring those warnings would be reckless.

The data centre industry has proven itself adaptable in the past, whether in responding to the rise of cloud or the demands of sustainability. Supply chain resilience must now join that list of priorities.

Link: https:// www. rlb. com / europe / insight / data-centre-trendsreport-2025 /

The vulnerabilities extend beyond equipment. Skilled labour shortages are compounding delays, with contractors struggling to find experienced engineers and technicians capable of building and commissioning mission‐critical facilities. Logistics networks, still recovering from pandemic disruptions, remain fragile. Even geopolitical tensions play a role, with trade restrictions and tariffs adding uncertainty to procurement strategies. In short, the supply chain is not just strained – it is brittle.

The implications are profound. If more than half of industry leaders already believe capacity targets cannot be met, then the sector risks falling short of the very digital transformation it is meant to enable. Enterprises banking on AI workloads, cloud migrations and edge deployments may find themselves constrained not by ambition but by infrastructure bottlenecks. That gap between demand and delivery could become the defining challenge of the next decade.

So what is the way forward? First, the industry must treat supply chain resilience as a strategic priority, not an operational afterthought. Long‐term partnerships with suppliers, dual‐sourcing strategies and investment in local manufacturing capacity are essential.

Second, innovation in construction models – particularly modular and prefabricated builds – can help mitigate delays, even if they cannot eliminate them entirely.

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