Public Utilities, Mass Transportation, and Telecommunications Industries Lead…
Cloud and Colocation Rise to Joint Fifth Place

Vertiv has released a report confirming that public utility industries—including electricity, gas, nuclear power, and water treatment—are the most critical industries in the world. The company assembled an evaluation panel composed of leading global infrastructure experts, which systematically quantified and ranked industries by importance according to 15 criteria.

According to the survey results, mass transportation (particularly rail and aviation) ranks second following public utilities, followed by telecommunications, oil and gas production, and cloud and colocation services. The complete ranking can be found in the "Ranking the World's Most Critical Industries" report and at www.VertivCo.com/MostCritical.

The evaluation panel established criteria that included the potential impact of loss of availability in major systems, then weighted them according to the severity of their impact. Subsequently, using these criteria, the panel created importance assessment items, scored each industry using these criteria, and ranked them by their average scores.

Clean power and clean water are fundamental requirements of advanced societies, and because public utility industries support other industries and services, they inevitably rank as the most critical industry. In selecting mass transportation as the second most critical, the evaluation panel cited not only the safety of moving people, but also the enormous impact on multiple industries, markets, and the world at large should such systems be delayed or disrupted. The selection of telecommunications as third reflects the importance of communication and connectivity for both personal and business activities as well as emergency situations.

When ranking industries by their potential financial impact in the event of sudden operational stoppage, financial services ranked highest. E-commerce ranked second, followed by cloud and colocation services. Cloud and colocation also ranks fifth overall on the most critical industries list, reflecting the increasing dependence on these platforms across multiple industries. The evaluation panel identified cloud and colocation as one of several emerging industries whose importance will continue to grow in the future.

Tony Gaunt, Senior Director at Vertiv, stated, "Cloud and colocation will continue to grow rapidly. In particular, there is a strong likelihood that essential services such as IoT networks supporting smart cities and manufacturing will be developed. As this occurs, power outages will increasingly become a critical risk factor."

Vertiv designs, builds, and services essential infrastructure necessary to implement applications required for data centers, telecommunications networks, and commercial and industrial facilities.