Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, has issued a stark warning that regional data centers, artificial intelligence facilities, and undersea internet cables could face direct strikes if conflict with the United States reignites. This threat highlights the extreme vulnerability of the Middle East’s digital infrastructure, which relies on a few narrow maritime chokepoints.
The geopolitical tension stems from the strategic importance of the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a narrow passage where nearly one-fifth of global internet traffic flows.
Iran is fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists, and threatening a wider, harsher response against the US and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms, The Wall Street Journal reported. 👇Read more herehttps://t.co/hQFiOHel2B
The Strategic Fragility of Digital Arteries
The Middle East’s reliance on a concentrated network of undersea cables makes its internet connectivity uniquely susceptible to disruption. According to research firm TeleGeography, more than 90 percent of the data capacity linking Europe and Asia passes through the Red Sea.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in security studies at King’s College London, emphasizes that physical destruction is not the only risk to these systems. Data centers, which power essential banking and cloud services, are fixed, high-value targets. “An attack does not necessarily need to destroy the servers themselves to render an entire facility inoperable,” Krieg noted, citing the dependence of these facilities on uninterrupted power and cooling. The history of such disruptions is already documented: in February 2024, the cargo ship Rubymar damaged three undersea cables, and in September 2025, two additional cables were severed near Jeddah, causing widespread regional outages.
Escalation of Targeted Infrastructure Threats
Tehran’s rhetoric regarding digital infrastructure has sharpened significantly throughout 2026.
| Event | Date | Primary Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Rubymar cable damage | February 2024 | Three cables severed; regional latency |
| AWS facility strikes | March 2026 | Physical damage in UAE and Bahrain |
| Jeddah cable cuts | September 2025 | Middle East/South Asia access slowed |
| Houthi Mocha capture | September 2026 | Increased risk at Bab al-Mandeb |
Shifting Economics of Regional Tech Hubs
The Gulf states, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have staked their post-oil economic futures on becoming global hubs for artificial intelligence and cloud computing. This ambition is now being tested by the reality of regional conflict. Large-scale investments, such as the 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI campus and Saudi Arabia’s “Humain” project, are being forced to account for a new variable: digital vulnerability.
While Microsoft has pledged over $10 billion in investment across the region through 2030, the company has also pivoted its focus toward “digital resilience.” Experts suggest that true security will require geographic redundancy—moving critical data storage outside the immediate Gulf conflict zone.
The Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the IRGC, has recently suggested a different approach, arguing that Iran should impose fees and licensing requirements on companies like Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft for cables passing through Iranian territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz. This legalistic argument, based on the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, signals that Tehran may seek to weaponize the regulatory environment as much as the physical one.
As the regional government in Yemen continues to clash with the Houthis over control of the Bab al-Mandeb coastline, the stability of the global internet remains tied to the outcome of these localized skirmishes. “The Gulf has traditionally sold itself as a stable environment in an unstable region,” Krieg observed. “The war has challenged that proposition.”
With major tech firms failing to comment on these specific threats to their infrastructure, the question remains: how much risk can international investors absorb before the Gulf’s digital ambitions are forced to relocate?
