A London based data center developer, Pure Data Centre Group, has halted all new investments in Middle East projects after one of its facilities was damaged by shrapnel from an Iranian missile or drone strike. CEO Gary Wojtaszek told CNBC that no company will commit new capital at scale until the conflict stabilizes. Pure DC owns a campus on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island with 20 megawatts of operational capacity serving an unnamed hyperscale customer, designed for AI and cloud deployments.
Widespread Damage and Service Disruptions
Iran directly struck two Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in the United Arab Emirates and a near miss from a drone damaged a third AWS facility in Bahrain. The attacks caused structural damage, power disruptions, and water damage from fire suppression systems. AWS had to waive customer charges for its Middle East cloud region for the entire month of March 2026, costing Amazon an estimated $150 million. Cloud services were disrupted for major clients including banks, the Dubai ride-hailing app Careem, and data cloud provider Snowflake.
Shifting Security Calculus for AI Infrastructure
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has explicitly threatened retaliation against US tech companies, releasing a list of targets that includes offices and data centers operated by Google, Microsoft, Palantir, IBM, Nvidia, and Oracle. An Oracle data center in Dubai was attacked on April 2, though local air defense intercepted the drone with only shrapnel damage. These incidents are forcing tech companies to reconsider their Middle East AI data center strategy. Options include downsizing from massive campuses to smaller distributed facilities, which would increase operational costs. Defense companies report growing interest in securing data centers with anti-drone and air defense systems.
Source: Arstechnica
