Opinion | AI infrastructure on the front line: Lessons for Asean from the Iran war
Opinion | AI infrastructure on the front line: Lessons for Asean from the Iran war
Publish Date: 2026-03-28 17:30:00
Source Domain: www.scmp.com
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On March 1, drone strikes initiated by Israel and the United States against Iran caused significant damage to Amazon Web Services’ data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, impairing cloud services in those countries.
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Iran retaliated by warning that U.S. tech companies with Israeli links, including Google, Microsoft, Palantir, Nvidia, and Oracle, were legitimate targets for further countermeasures.
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The strikes on data centers in West Asia carry profound implications for Southeast Asia, a region aspiring to be a digital and AI hub which is attempting to remain insulated from geopolitical conflicts.
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The targeting of digital infrastructure, including private data centers, is increasingly likely in active conflicts as technological shifts reshape the nature of warfare, merging civilian and military functionalities.
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The convergence of AI-powered data analytics, cloud storage, and military operations indicates that, in highly digitalized societies, the distinction between economic disruption and strategic jeopardy often becomes blurred.
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Civilian data centers and algorithms that support critical sectors like banking, healthcare, education, and public administration could also serve as military targets, bluring the line between civilian and military uses of cloud storage and AI workflows.
