Manchester's digital economy relies on hidden infrastructure beyond broadband

Summary

Manchester businesses depend on data centres, servers and power systems that operate far from view. When these fail—through power cuts, equipment breakdown or cyber attacks—the impact goes beyond losing internet: transactions fail, customer records become unavailable and businesses cannot trade. The North Hyde substation fire in London in March 2025 cut supply to nearly 67,000 customers and closed Heathrow Airport, illustrating how far infrastructure failure can ripple.

Data centres now face formal recognition as Critical National Infrastructure, placing them alongside energy and water systems. The Uptime Institute found that power remains the leading cause of major outages, with 57% of recent failures costing more than $100,000. Most data centres protect against this through dual systems: uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) that bridge power gaps using batteries, and standby generators that maintain supply for hours.

As Greater Manchester firms become more digitally dependent, understanding where their data and systems are hosted—and how those facilities are protected—has moved from technical detail to business risk. Business owners should ask their service providers about power redundancy, testing regimes and fuel management, not to expect catastrophe but to know where vulnerabilities lie.

Common questions

What is this article about?

As Greater Manchester businesses move to cloud-first operations, the reliability of data centre power systems and backup infrastructure has become critical to business continuity. Recent outages elsewhere have shown how failures in this hidden layer can halt transactions, block customer access and cost businesses hundreds of thousands of pounds.

When was this published?

This article was published on 16 October 2026.

Who published this article?

This article was published by Business Manchester.