When Drones Hit Data Centers

Share this link on Facebook

Share this page on X (Twitter)

Share this link on LinkedIn

Share this page on Reddit

Email a link to this page

In modern warfare, data centers have joined energy supplies to become prime military targets, with server rooms now as vulnerable to missile strikes as oil refineries.

Late afternoon on Sunday March 1, an Iranian Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drone struck an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in the United Arab Emirates, setting off a fire and forcing a shutdown of the power supply. A second facility was hit shortly after. A third, in Bahrain, sustained damage when a drone struck nearby. By the next morning, headlines around the world highlighted a new dilemma: data centers have become a legitimate theatre of modern conflict, and the Gulf finds itself at its center.

The strikes on the UAE and Bahrain were not accidental. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stated the facilities were targeted for their role in supporting enemy military and intelligence operations. The claim reflects a broader reality that has been taking shape for years: as leading technology companies deepen their ties with defence establishments, the infrastructure powering commercial AI has become inseparable from the infrastructure powering modern warfare. While companies like OpenAI have signed agreements with the Department of Defense, others like Anthropic have pushed back on the wartime use of AI, raising questions about the boundaries between democratic values and AI deployment in the battlefield. The cloud, once conceived as a civilian utility, has become a contested domain.

Data Centers Are a Target Unlike Any Other

Hyperscalers including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Meta are the companies fueling most of the world’s increasing demand for data centers, which are among the most capital-intensive........

© The National Interest