βToo big to not failβ: Google outage exposes UK reliance on a handful of cloud providers
20 October 2026 at 17:50
Our dependence on internet services of a few key tech companies leaves us vulnerable to cloud failures, bugs and more, experts say
It happened again. A power outage hit a datacentre in London, and things cascaded from there: multiple banking services faltered, court hearings were put on hold and patients reported temporary glitches on the NHS app.
The datacentre in question was in Googleβs europe-west2-b zone, one of more than a dozen βzonesβ that the US search giant maintains in Europe to service its clients.
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Β© Photograph: Google Handout/EPA

Β© Photograph: Google Handout/EPA

Β© Photograph: Google Handout/EPA