The rapid expansion of American-owned data centres in the Middle East has opened up a new front for Iran’s retaliation against the US, complicating Gulf ambitions to build multibillion-dollar AI facilities in the region. Drone strikes on Amazon Web Services facilities this week in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain highlight the vulnerability of cloud facilities — prominent symbols of US tech power in the region and hard to defend against air attack. Fars News Agency, an outlet affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Thursday that Iran targeted Amazon and Microsoft facilities in recent drone strikes. Experts say Amazon’s facilities were likely targeted by Iran. Microsoft said it had not experienced any outages in the region.

Full report : First known military strike on a US hyperscaler rattles regional ambitions to build multibillion-dollar cloud facilities.