In reaction to persistent threats and airstrikes from the United States, Iran has threatened to launch more assaults on data centers throughout the Middle East.
In a video released late last week and widely circulated on Sunday, Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari stated that Iran would retaliate with its own strikes against U.S. energy and tech infrastructure in the region if the United States proceeded with its threats to target its civilian infrastructure.
In the Iranian-released film, a globe is seen, followed by a close-up of the Stargate data center in the United Arab Emirates and the words “nothing stays hidden to our sight, though hidden by Google.”
In January 2025, OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle unveiled Stargate, a $500 billion joint venture to construct AI data centers. Due to purported funding issues and tariff-related expenses, the effort initially struggled to get off the ground and sought to grow by adding new data centers abroad.
The most recent threat follows U.S. President Trump’s threat to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including water desalination and power plants, by the end of Tuesday if Iran doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital international shipping route that has impeded global supply chain traffic since the war began in February.
The conflict has already caused missiles to strike some data centers in the area.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in Bahrain and an Oracle data center in Dubai were hit by Iranian missiles. Last week, Iran specifically warned IT firms like Apple and Nvidia.