TL;DR
- Dubai Denial: Dubai dismissed the IRGC’s claim of striking an Oracle data centre as “fabricated and untrue.”
- Bahrain Attack: Bahrain’s Interior Ministry reported a fire at an Amazon facility following what authorities described as an Iranian attack.
- Tech Threats: The IRGC named 18 US tech companies, including Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia, as military targets across the Gulf.
- Investment at Risk: US tech firms have committed tens of billions of dollars to Gulf data centres and AI infrastructure now under threat.
Dubai on Thursday dismissed Iran’s claim that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck an Oracle data centre in the emirate, calling the reports “fabricated and untrue.” A verified attack on Amazon cloud infrastructure in Bahrain and IRGC threats against major US tech firms signal that data centres have become a genuine front line in the Iran-US conflict.
Never before has a major US tech company’s data centre been named as a specific strike target in an armed conflict. Already, the IRGC has claimed credit for an attack on an Amazon facility in Bahrain that authorities there acknowledged. The group has also named 18 US tech companies as military targets whose Gulf operations represent tens of billions of dollars in investment.
Confirmed Strikes and Disputed Claims
Bahrain and Dubai present starkly different verification outcomes from the same IRGC campaign. On April 1, Iran’s military wing claimed responsibility for an attack on an Amazon cloud computing centre in Bahrain. According to WION News, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry reported a fire at a company facility following what authorities described as an Iranian attack. Amazon Web Services subsequently reported “disruption” of its Bahrain region, marking the second time the conflict had affected its operations.
However, the Oracle claim in Dubai followed a different trajectory. One day later, Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing the IRGC’s navy command, reported that an Oracle data centre in Dubai had also been targeted. Dubai’s Media Office dismissed the claim as fabricated, calling it “fake news.” Oracle had already been named in an earlier round of Iranian tech-company threats on March 10, connecting the disputed Dubai claim to a broader pressure campaign rather than an isolated allegation.
Both strike claims followed a broader IRGC campaign that had been building for days. On March 31, Iran’s military published a statement on its official Sepah News channel naming 18 US firms as legitimate targets in retaliation for their alleged role in enabling American and Israeli assassination operations inside Iran.
Starting at 8:00 pm Tehran time on April 1, the IRGC warned, tech companies should expect “the destruction of their relevant units” in retaliation for assassinations in Iran. Alongside that deadline, an evacuation warning urged employees at the named companies and anyone within one kilometre of their facilities to leave immediately.
Meanwhile, IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency also published a list of 29 regional offices and data centres operated by major firms, providing a detailed map of potential targets across the Gulf. Separately, the IRGC’s Khatam Al-Anbiya central command said its attacks were in response to US-Israeli strikes on Iranian steel industries, naming American steel industries in Abu Dhabi, American aluminium industries in Bahrain, and Rafael arms factories among the targets already hit.
Data Centres as Military Targets
Iran’s rationale for targeting civilian technology companies centres on a claim that American ICT and AI firms are “the key element in designing and tracking terror targets.” In its Sepah News statement, the IRGC framed companies including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Intel, and Oracle as active participants in military operations rather than civilian businesses.
Furthermore, Iran accused the firms of acting as “spies” for Washington and helping carry out strikes that have killed senior Iranian officials, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei in an Israeli air strike on February 28.
Additionally, Iranian Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour were also killed in the conflict, fuelling the IRGC’s stated desire for retaliation against the technology it blames for enabling precision targeting.
In parallel, Israeli Defence Forces claimed to have killed 40 senior commanders in a single operation described as possible only because of military intelligence capabilities. Bloomberg reported in late March that Palantir’s chief technology officer described the Iran conflict as the first major war driven by AI, underscoring how central data processing and targeting algorithms have become to modern combat operations.
As a consequence, Gulf data centres have come under deliberate attack for the first time in military history, disrupting key cloud infrastructure. Analysts say this redefines what constitutes a military target in modern warfare, with consequences that extend well beyond the current conflict.
“Tech assets are now treated as part of the conflict, not peripheral to it,” CEO of risk management firm Healix James Henderson noted. The episode signals that future crises may treat data centres and cloud platforms as strategic targets on par with traditional military sites.
Billions in Gulf Tech Investment at Risk
Companies on the IRGC’s target list have enormous financial exposure across the Gulf. Microsoft plans to have $15.2 billion invested in UAE AI and cloud infrastructure by 2029. Amazon has also pledged $5 billion to an AI hub in Riyadh through its partnership with Saudi AI firm HUMAIN.
Oracle alone has committed an estimated $156 billion in capital spending to its AI infrastructure buildout globally. Hyperscaler capital expenditure is forecast to exceed $600 billion in 2026, with roughly 75 per cent tied to AI infrastructure.
Beyond those commitments, Saudi Arabia’s state AI entity Humain has separately unveiled its Humain $10B fund and infrastructure plan, underscoring how much physical capacity is already committed across the region. Much of that spending is locked into physical facilities that cannot be quickly relocated if the security situation deteriorates further.
G42, the sole non-American company on the IRGC target list, is an Abu Dhabi-based AI firm. G42 has secured a Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment alongside agreements with OpenAI and Cerebras.
Building on this, OpenAI and G42 are also jointly developing a large-scale data centre in the UAE, reinforcing the emirate’s position as a hub for AI infrastructure investment. With so many major projects under way, the IRGC’s target list effectively covers a large share of the Gulf’s entire technology ecosystem.
Despite the scale of the campaign, Intel is the only named company to have issued a public response to the IRGC threats. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and Oracle have not publicly addressed the IRGC’s designation of their Gulf operations as military targets.
“The safety and wellbeing of our team is our number one priority. We are taking steps to safeguard and support our workers and facilities in the Middle East and are actively monitoring the situation.”
Intel spokesperson (via CNBC)
As a result, exposed infrastructure on this scale creates a strategic dilemma for US tech firms that have spent years building Gulf operations as a growth engine for cloud and AI services. Nature published an editorial calling for a moratorium on AI use in warfare until international humanitarian law is updated to reflect new realities, reflecting broader unease about the blurring of civilian and military technology.
Since Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, US forces have struck more than 10,000 targets inside Iran, according to US Central Command. US military officials have confirmed using AI for drone navigation, intelligence analysis, and “target selection tools,” though they maintain a human remains in the decision loop.
For the IRGC, that distinction is irrelevant: the group treats the companies building those tools as combatants, not bystanders. Whether future IRGC claims prove credible or follow the same disputed pattern as the Oracle allegation, the campaign has already succeeded in one respect: it has placed Gulf data centres at the centre of a geopolitical confrontation that shows no sign of easing. Former high-ranking IRGC commander Hossein Kanani Moghaddam has signalled that the group’s retaliation is far from over.
“There are still many surprises ahead, things the Americans and Israelis have yet to face. For example, we possess electromagnetic weapons, capable of disabling an entire city’s power and electronic systems without harming civilians.”
Hossein Kanani Moghaddam, former high-ranking IRGC commander (via Gizmodo)
