The rapid expansion of AI-driven data centers is creating new strategic high-value targets globally, fundamentally altering critical infrastructure. Following the United States' and Israel's February attack on Iran, Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes, hitting three Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, disrupting digital services, and later an Oracle data center in Dubai.
Iran then declared eighteen major technology companies, including AWS, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Oracle, as legitimate military targets. These attacks signal a strategic shift, making data centers attractive for adversaries to impose costs or disrupt military operations due to their fixed nature, utility dependence, and compounding effects. AI data centers, requiring immense power (up to a gigawatt for a single training run), are driving digital megacampus development, concentrating economic and military value. Defense planners must now consider these facilities key terrain, requiring protection from sabotage, cyberattacks, and conventional strikes. In the Indo-Pacific, new data center hubs in southern Taiwan and Johor, Malaysia, could become geopolitical flashpoints, offering China alternative leverage or coercive tools in a regional conflict.
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