AI data centers become war targets as Iran strikes AWS facilities in the Gulf

Iranian drone strikes hit three Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE and Bahrain starting March 1, 2026, causing structural damage and service disruptions in what marks the first confirmed deliberate targeting of commercial cloud infrastructure during an active military conflict. Five attacks on Gulf data centers have now been confirmed since the conflict escalated. The strikes are widely interpreted as retaliation against perceived U.S. military and intelligence support routed through commercial tech infrastructure. Alongside the physical strikes, Iranian authorities published a list of 29 technology targets spanning the Gulf and Israel. The list includes AWS, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Palantir, Oracle, and IBM. $2 trillion in tech investment suddenly looks exposed The Gulf region has quietly become one of the world’s most ambitious buildouts of AI and cloud infrastructure, with roughly $2 trillion in U.S.-backed tech investments planned or underway across the region. Hut 8 secured a 15-year lease for an AI data center valued at $9.8 billion, with options that could push the total commitment to $25.1 billion. Core Scientific is pursuing $3.3 billion in financing to operate...