Tehran’s new strategy in war: First targeting military bases, now data centers too – Is Iran playing a big game?

US-Iran-Israel War: On Tuesday, American data centers present in Gulf countries also iran Became the target of attacks. Iran, which is already attacking US targets and business interests in Arab countries, carried out large-scale drone attacks on Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

These attacks were not sudden, but were carried out as per strategy. It is often said that data is the new oil. If data is considered the new oil, then data centers are like its refinery. Causing it harm is like causing huge loss to the business of that country.

Why is Iran targeting data centers?

This attack by Iran took place when America and Israel in a joint action targeted the top leadership of Iran, which also included Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In these attacks, it was also revealed that Iran’s defense command and control center was destroyed. It is believed that Iran’s allied units were working as per pre-determined instructions and it is possible that the data center was already included in the list of possible targets.

Billions of dollars are invested in building a data center. For this reason, they become big targets during war, because weakening the business structure of a country is the main strategy of war.

Three possible reasons are being given for targeting big technology bases. The first reason could be harm to business investment. Another reason could be to influence information used in military operations. The third reason could be to affect dozens of companies that depend on these data centers.

Is the use of AI in the attack the reason why the target was targeted?

The US military had used Anthropic’s Cloud AI technology to plan attacks on Iran. Experts say that with the use of AI, targets could be selected quickly and accurately. According to the report, America and Israel attacked about 900 targets of Iran in the first 12 hours, which is considered almost impossible without AI tools.

Modern militaries rely on data centers to gather intelligence, communicate and analyze targets, the US used Cloud AI for intelligence assessment, target identification and assessment of combat situations.

What was the impact of the attack on data centers?

Amazon Web Services said that its cloud unit in UAE was attacked by Iran. An explosion near another data center in Bahrain also caused some damage. Due to these attacks, AWS faced many problems, such as power outages and infrastructure damage. Due to this the company had to close down some of its parts. However, according to the official statement of the company, the loss remained limited.

Amazon advised its customers who were using the affected cloud service to secure their data as the repair work continues. Data centers are the focus of large investments, for example, Microsoft has announced to invest approximately $8 billion to expand artificial intelligence and data center infrastructure in the UAE between 2026 and 2029.

Amazon shares fell nearly 2.7 percent in premarket trading on Tuesday after the Iran attack. Tech companies have invested heavily in the Middle East and this attack could shake their confidence.