Cheap Drones Complicate the Gulf’s AI Boom |
The war in Iran has ended the illusion that Gulf data centers can be treated as insulated commercial assets. In the very early days of the conflict, drone strikes impacted two Amazon Web Services facilities in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain, causing major disruption to cloud services. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps then published a list of 29 technology targets across Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE, including facilities linked to AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia. As the war expanded beyond military targets and into economic infrastructure, AI infrastructure has become a target in its own right.
This shift comes at a critical moment for the region. Gulf states are investing heavily in AI infrastructure to move up the value chain, diversify economies long shaped by oil, and secure a place in the future political economy of AI. The attacks will not end those ambitions, because the capital, energy, and political will behind them remain in place. Nor is Washington likely to step back, since the United States wants the Gulf inside a U.S.-aligned AI ecosystem rather than open to deeper Chinese penetration. But vulnerability of this infrastructure to cheap drones has changed the terms of the bargain. Protection is becoming inseparable from access, and future AI deals will increasingly come bundled with security guarantees, defense cooperation, and tighter political conditions.
The war in Iran has ended the illusion that Gulf data centers can be treated as insulated commercial assets. In the very early days of the conflict, drone strikes impacted two Amazon Web Services facilities in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain, causing major disruption to cloud services. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps then published a list of 29 technology targets across Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE, including facilities linked to AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia. As the war expanded beyond military targets and into economic infrastructure, AI infrastructure has become a target in its own right.
This shift comes at a critical moment for the region. Gulf states are investing heavily in AI infrastructure to move up the value chain, diversify economies long shaped by oil, and secure a place in the future political economy of AI. The attacks will not end those ambitions, because the capital, energy, and political will behind them remain in place. Nor is Washington likely to step back, since the United States wants the Gulf inside a U.S.-aligned AI ecosystem rather than open to deeper Chinese penetration. But vulnerability of this infrastructure to cheap drones has changed the terms of the bargain. Protection is becoming inseparable from access, and future AI deals will increasingly come bundled with security guarantees, defense cooperation, and tighter political conditions.
A model of the largest data center in the United Arab Emirates—under construction in Abu Dhabi as the Stargate initiative—was on display at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference on Nov. 3, 2025. Giuseppe CACACE/AFP/Getty Images
The significance of those attacks becomes clearer once they........