Data Centers Are ‘Inevitable’ Target in Conflict

Data centers in the Middle East have emerged as high-priority "soft targets" for Iranian military strikes due to their fragility and symbolic value as hubs of U.S.-Gulf cooperation. Sam Winter-Levy of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains that while these facilities are central to the global AI race, they remain highly vulnerable to low-cost drone swarms and missile barrages that can easily disable critical cooling systems or power transformers. Although hardening sites with reinforced concrete and air defenses is possible, the prohibitive costs and the "swarm" nature of modern threats make absolute security difficult to achieve. While the Gulf's abundant energy and capital make continued construction inevitable, the recent targeting serves as a critical wake-up call for the industry to prioritize physical resilience and redundancy alongside traditional cybersecurity. Consequently, the United States must strategically site its most critical computing clusters within more defensible allied territories or domestic locations.