According to WEF experts, these impacts could amount to annual costs by 2035 81 billion dollars entail. By 2065, this value is expected to more than double again 168 billion dollars. It should be noted that these calculations include all types of environmental risks – including droughts and floods. However, according to the WEF, the majority of the impact was due to extreme heat.
These forecasts are also confirmed by data from the industry itself:
- Extreme weather events have increased over the last three years essential loss factor developed in the “US Data Center Builder” risk portfolio of the insurer Zurich.
- According to First Street forecasts, 79 percent of data centers worldwide are exposed to increased risks from extreme weather events.
- A study by MapleCroft previously came to a somewhat more conservative assessment in 2025: According to this 56 percent Large data centers have a high or very high risk rating for extreme heat. This proportion is expected to increase to up to 80 percent by 2080.
Of course, these values cannot be easily transferred to Europe in general. But they illustrate a trend, as Guillermo Benito, CTO at colocation service provider Nabiax, explains: “These studies are based on global samples and therefore give great weight to capacity in Asia and the USA. However, all countries worldwide will have to adapt to the new circumstances. The two biggest challenges for data centers are energy and cooling.”
Heat wave pioneer Spain
People in southern Europe – and especially in Spain – have known for a long time how to deal with heat waves in general. This is also why French Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou suggested at the end of June 2026 that we take part in training in Spain to learn how to prevent high temperatures from paralyzing an entire country. Although the climate in Spain varies depending on the region, high summer temperatures are common in many areas (although these have become more extreme and frequent in recent years due to climate change).
The infrastructure and knowledge of solutions that the French minister wanted to find out about are already established. Even when it comes to data centers, as Benito notes: “In Spain, data centers already take these factors into account – regardless of whether it’s about redundancy, monitoring or maintenance. After all, this is not an unforeseen event in this country. That’s why it was taken into account in many cases from the start.”
This has already paid off in the summer of 2026: In contrast to the data centers in Great Britain, the heat wave has not yet paralyzed the Spanish data centers. According to Benito, this is also due to the fact that the cooling systems for data centers in Spain were tuned for efficiency and sustainability at an early stage – also because of the water shortage in the country: “It has always rarely rained in Spain. This is also why we work with closed circulation systems. Most operators in this country do not use any water at all – this circulates continuously, enriched with coolants.”
