Iran’s state media announced on March 31 that it would target a range of American tech firms, naming Microsoft, Google, Apple, Meta, Oracle, Intel, HP, IBM, Cisco, Dell, Palantir and Nvidia. The Financial Times reported an additional Iranian drone struck an Amazon data centre in Bahrain on April 1, and Iranian outlets claimed forces attacked an Oracle data centre in Dubai on April 2. Iran has also suffered strikes: a Tehran data centre run by state-owned Bank Sepah was reportedly hit by a missile—attributed by some sources to US or Israeli forces—on March 11.
Historically, data centres have been targets for espionage and cyberattacks; for example, Ukrainian hackers destroyed data in a Russian military-affiliated centre in 2024. The Gulf incidents were different: they were physical attacks. Drones damaged buildings and disrupted services, producing tangible outages and economic effects.
Recent advances in artificial intelligence have increased the strategic value of data centres. US military and government organisations have grown more reliant on AI systems for decision support, sometimes using commercial cloud services. When operators use models such as Anthropic’s Claude, the compute and storage running those models are typically hosted in commercial cloud infrastructure like AWS, which in some cases can store sensitive government information and tools.
Commercial data centres are the backbone of the cloud: they host streaming services, news, banking networks and government applications. When AWS facilities fail, outages can ripple through entertainment, commerce and official functions. With AI a major economic engine, data centres are critical infrastructure—they power AI services, the broader internet and systems that governments and industries depend on. Reports say the UAE strikes caused wide disruption to local banking.
Because of that centrality, disrupting data centres can impede a country’s military operations and civilian life. AWS operates many commercial sites worldwide, making its facilities potentially attractive targets in future conflicts.
That said, it is not clear that the Gulf data centres struck in March and April directly supported US military operations. US policy typically requires cloud providers to keep some government and military data within the United States or on Department of Defense premises; moving such data to AWS sites in the Gulf would usually need special authorization. Public reporting has not confirmed that these specific Gulf centres hosted US military data. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes targeted data centres supporting “the enemy’s” military and intelligence activities, and Iranian media later described major tech infrastructure in the region as “enemy technology infrastructure.”
Beyond any immediate military rationale, other motives likely influenced Iran’s choice of targets: punishing the United Arab Emirates for its ties with the United States, rattling global markets, and drawing international attention. The Gulf receives significant US technological investment, and attacking AI and cloud infrastructure there can be symbolic—striking at the heart of US–Gulf technological cooperation and potentially chilling future regional AI investment.
These strikes do not necessarily indicate a wholesale change in how wars are fought. Iran launched thousands of missiles and drones at the UAE and Bahrain, most of which were intercepted; only a small number struck civilian targets such as airports, hotels and the few data centres hit. Commercial data centres are large, relatively fragile, and typically lack dedicated air defences, which makes them vulnerable targets of opportunity—attacked because they could be hit.
Nevertheless, as AI and cloud-based resources become more central to national security, economies and daily life, commercial data centres are increasingly perceived as legitimate strategic targets. These attacks are a reminder that even facilities not directly hosting military operations can become part of the warfighting landscape.
The author, a PhD candidate at Georgia Tech studying how technology affects international security, argues these events force nations to recognise data centres as critical elements in future conflict planning and protection.”}
