As the Iran‑Israel‑US conflict continues into its second week, the war is increasingly spilling over into the digital and technology realm, with Tehran broadening its definition of legitimate targets to include American cloud and data infrastructure across the Middle East.
According to reports citing the IRGC‑affiliated Tasnim news agency, Iran has published what it calls a list of “Iran’s new targets,” which includes offices, cloud computing facilities, data centres, and development hubs linked to major US technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, IBM, Oracle and Palantir Technologies.
Where are these companies located in Middle East?
These assets, located in Israeli cities and several Gulf states like the UAE and potentially others in the region, were described by Iranian state media as connected to technologies used for military or strategic purposes, and thus now within the scope of what Iran considers fair game amid the expanding infrastructure war.
This shift marks a notable evolution in the conflict from primarily military and economic targets to include digital infrastructure, a domain previously considered less exposed to kinetic warfare.
Earlier in the hostilities, Iranian drones struck multiple data centres operated by Amazon Web Services in the UAE and Bahrain, damaging facilities and forcing them offline, which led to service disruptions for cloud customers and raised alarm over the vulnerability of cloud infrastructure in conflict zones, The National reported.
The attacks highlighted that even commercial technology hubs, traditionally shields of modern economies, are susceptible to physical strikes when embedded in geopolitical tensions.
How are tech firms responding?
Tech firms in West Asia are on high alert, with Nasscom urging strengthened cybersecurity, including DDoS readiness and data, amid rising conflict risks. Concerns over AI-driven threats like deepfakes and potential targeting of critical data infrastructure have prompted companies to review contingency plans, enhance threat detection, and consider rerouting data traffic to ensure resilience, reports claimed.