Industry analysts estimate that more than 2,000 new data centers will be built worldwide over the next four years, with hundreds already under construction or in planning stages. In the United States alone, 1,500 new data centers are now in development, and in the past year alone, an estimated $600 billion was spent to develop new data center development. That’s more than the total cost of rebuilding the entire U.S. interstate highway system when adjusted for inflation. Despite this scale, experts consider data center buildout to still be in early stages.
As this rapid growth continues, data centers are becoming larger, more complex, and significantly more energy-dense.
Source: UC Santa Barbara; Hanwha Data Centers
Alongside this expansion, the increased adoption of lithium-ion battery systems introduces new fire protection challenges that differ from traditional facility risks.
How Data Centers Deploy Lithium-ion Batteries
Data centers typically deploy lithium-ion batteries as part of their broader backup power and energy storage infrastructure, designed to maintain continuous uptime during utility interruptions or grid instability. These systems play a critical role in ensuring that even momentary power losses do not disrupt cloud services, enterprise applications, or critical digital infrastructure.
The most established use case is within uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems, where lithium-ion batteries provide immediate, short-duration power the moment a disruption occurs, bridging the gap until diesel generators or alternative backup systems fully activate. This rapid response capability is essential in environments where even milliseconds of downtime can have significant operational or financial impact.
① Centralized UPS Batteries② Rack-Level Li-ion ModulesUtility GridUPS RoomLi-ion Battery CabinetsServer HallServer RacksGeneratorDiesel Backup
Li-ion batteries bridge utility power to server loads and sit in dedicated UPS rooms or directly inside server racks.
Beyond traditional UPS configurations, lithium-ion systems are increasingly being deployed directly within server racks and modular power units. This approach supports the rising energy density demands of modern computing environments, particularly those driven by AI workloads and high-performance computing.
Data Center Fires Are Dangerous and Complex
Lithium-ion battery fires inside data centers pose a fundamentally different risk than conventional electrical fires. Failures caused by overheating, internal short circuits, physical damage, or battery management system malfunctions can trigger thermal runaway, a chain reaction where heat rapidly spreads from one cell to another. In dense server environments, that escalation can quickly impact entire battery arrays or nearby infrastructure.
What makes these fires especially dangerous is their intensity and unpredictability.
Lithium-ion incidents can generate extreme heat, release toxic and flammable gases, and reignite even after visible flames appear extinguished. Combine this with massive buildings with complex floor plans, secure perimeters, and high value equipment that doesn’t react well to water, and there’s a real potential for catastrophe.
Click each stage to see how a single cell failure escalates into an uncontrolled chain reaction.
The battery begins to overheat due to abuse, defects, or environmental stress. The solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer starts to decompose, releasing initial heat and gases.
Heat outpaces dissipation. The separator melts, causing internal short circuits. Anode-electrolyte and cathode reactions cascade, releasing oxygen and highly flammable gases.
Pressure builds from accumulated gases. The cell vents or ruptures, and the flammable gas mixture ignites. Fire can propagate to adjacent cells and battery arrays — and reignite after apparent extinguishment.
What Global Data Center Fires Reveal About Battery Risk
In data centers, where uptime is critical and equipment is tightly packed, a single battery failure can lead to widespread hardware damage, service outages, and complex suppression challenges that traditional fire protection systems are not designed to handle.
Globally, data center fires have demonstrated how quickly battery-related incidents can escalate into large-scale operational disasters.
France: OVHcloud SBG2 data center fire
In 2021, a fire at the OVHcloud SBG2 data center in Strasbourg, France completely destroyed one facility and severely damaged another.
Tens of thousands of servers were lost, millions of websites went offline, and significant amounts of customer data became unrecoverable. The incident remains one of the most severe data center fires on record and underscored the industry’s growing concerns around suppression complexity, redundancy planning, and fire propagation in high-density environments.
South Korea: National Information Resources Service Center fire
Similar risks emerged in South Korea following a fire at the National Information Resources Service Center in Daejeon. The incident impacted 647 government systems, with 96 completely destroyed. According to government officials, approximately 858 terabytes of public-sector data were lost, including years of critical work materials. The event highlighted how a single infrastructure failure inside a data center can create widespread operational disruption that ripples far beyond the physical facility itself.
Buckeye, ArizonaAPS McMicken BESS · 2019Northern Virginia, USA“Data Center Alley” · high densityUnited Kingdom2022 heat-wave outagesStrasbourg, FranceOVHcloud SBG2 · 2021Daejeon, South KoreaNIRS Center · 2021
As lithium-ion battery deployments increase, temperature management has become another major concern for operators. These batteries typically perform best within controlled temperature ranges and can become unstable under extreme heat conditions. Elevated temperatures can accelerate electrolyte decomposition and increase the risk of thermal runaway, forcing facilities to rely heavily on continuous cooling, monitoring, and thermal management systems.
That risk became especially visible during the 2022 UK heat wave, when temperatures exceeded 104°F and cooling systems struggled to maintain safe operating conditions. During the event, both Google and Oracle experienced outages linked to cooling failures at their UK data centers, demonstrating how environmental stressors can compound infrastructure vulnerabilities in high-density computing environments.
For emergency responders, the scale and complexity of modern data centers are also changing how fire incidents are managed. In areas such as Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” fire departments increasingly coordinate closely with on-site security and engineering teams before incidents occur.
How Different Battery Chemistries Can Unlock New Solutions
As energy storage becomes more integrated into data center infrastructure, operators are increasingly exploring alternative battery chemistries that offer different performance, safety, and resilience advantages beyond traditional lithium-based systems. Sodium-ion batteries are emerging as a promising option due to their use of more abundant, less reactive materials, which can deliver greater thermal stability and more predictable behavior under stress, potentially simplifying safety requirements and enabling more flexible deployment strategies.
Within this evolving landscape, Alsym Energy is developing a non-lithium battery chemistry specifically designed for safety-focused applications, using inherently stable materials to help critical infrastructure operators reduce operational risk while maintaining reliability and continuity.
