Iranian strikes at Amazon sites raise alarms - Rest of World Skip to content Rest of World Reporting Global Tech Stories Middle East & North AfricaGlobalIranian drone strikes at Amazon sites raise alarms over protecting data centers Sign In About Latest Newsletter Explore by Beats Tech Giants China Outside China EV Revolution Innovation Regions Africa Asia China Eastern Europe Latin America South Asia Middle East & North Africa Sections Access & Connectivity Creators & Communities E-commerce Labor Money Politics The Platform Economy Learn more About us Team news Work with us Contributors Support us Platforms Listen Follow us Dark Mode Tech Giants Iranian drone strikes at Amazon sites raise alarms over protecting data centers Tech industry’s past focus on cyberattacks and natural disasters overshadowed threats of physical attacks. iStock/Rest of World iStock/Rest of World By Viola Zhou 4 March 2026 Critical data infrastructure is expected to become an attractive target in a war. The attacks on UAE, Bahrain data centers will lead to more efforts building up data center resilience, experts say. Companies have advertised secure data centers built in caves and bunkers. The Iranian drone strikes that hit Amazon Web Services facilities in the Middle East have thrust a new question to the forefront of the tech industry: Should data centers be defended like military assets? The attacks — the first known military strikes at an American hyperscaler’s infrastructure — damaged two AWS sites in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain, disrupting services across the region and underscoring how critical data infrastructure is emerging as a potential target in modern warfare. “[Physical attacks] are only going to become more common moving forward as AI becomes more and more significant,” Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, told Rest of World.  Now suddenly, protecting data centers is like protecting top-security government offices.” Winter-Levy warned against building critical compute infrastructure in the Gulf in an opinion piece in The Washington Post in July, citing risks from growing U.S.-Iran tensions. “As more and more parts of the economy rely on these data centers, they correspondingly become increasingly attractive targets,” Winter-Levy said.  The attacks on data centers will lead to more investments on data infrastructure, as companies try to diversify data storage, according to a report by intelligence firm IDC. The AWS damage on Monday created outages for a range of consumer and financial services, including delivery and ride-hailing app Careem and payment service Alaan.  In the Middle East, cloud providers will commit to “multi-AZ” deployments — saving replicas of data in separate data centers, according to IDC. Globally, companies and governments will expect data center providers to have recovery plans and multiple facilities within a country.  The Gulf countries have pledged trillions of dollars to build AI data infrastructure. To attract clients, the governments will have to offer heightened security measures, Ashish Nadkarni, who leads IDC’s global infrastructure research, told Rest of World. “Now suddenly, protecting data centers is like protecting top-security government offices,” Nadkarni said.  Around the world, data storage providers have already built underground data facilities inside Cold War nuclear bunkers and caves to attract clients worried about safety. Bunkers in the U.K. and Sweden now house servers. In China, Tencent has housed important data in caverns in the mountainous Guizhou province.  While tech companies have been preparing data infrastructure against cyberattacks and natural disasters, the threats from physical attacks are still not prioritized enough, Winter-Levy said. Potential defensive measures, such as installing air defense systems and building reinforced concrete, are expensive and do not offer full protection for the sprawling buildings.  As data centers become seen as essential parts of national security, governments and companies will have to pay high costs to offer them military-grade protection.  Viola Zhou is a reporter for Rest of World covering China's tech scene. She is based in New York City. Read more stories Global Dispatch Can AI beat a goldfish at calling the World Cup? As chatbots compete to forecast the tournament, an unlikely rival from a Toronto fish tank continues to outperform them. By Indranil Ghosh Ideas The problem AI content moderation cannot solve Meta and other big tech companies are increasingly using AI for content moderation, but as the backlash to Muse Image shows, it cannot protect users because it does not account for consent. By Hera Hussain Innovation The Gulf has billions to spend on AI. It still needs Nvidia Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to diversify their AI supply chains, but geopolitical constraints and Nvidia's technological lead leave them with few viable alternatives. By Indranil Ghosh About us Privacy Policy Platforms Newsletter Donate Contact © 2026 Rest of World