Datacentres in the UK are to be designated as critical national infrastructure (CNI) in an effort to protect them from cyber-attacks and IT blackouts, the government has said.
The CNI categorisation means datacentres will be on the same footing as water, energy and emergency service systems, and therefore receive greater government support to anticipate and recover from incidents such as cyber-attacks, outages or environmental disasters.
The UK is home to the highest number of datacentres in western Europe.
Britain said the move would reassure companies building data centres.
“Bringing data centres into the Critical National Infrastructure regime will allow better coordination and cooperation with the government against cyber criminals and unexpected events,” said technology minister Peter Kyle.