Why Data Centers Have Become Military Targets

When the U.S. and Israel launched attacks against Iran earlier this year, Tehran responded by striking energy infrastructure across the Gulf. The result was a severe shock to global energy markets that continues to this day. Less publicized at the time were its strikes on another kind of infrastructure: data centers.Similar attacks have since taken place in Russia and Ukraine, where both sides have been trading tit-for-tat strikes on data centers. Experts say these attacks represent a new front in warfare, in which facilities powering the technology behind many critical industries have become military targets. The AI boom has led to a surge in demand for computing power, data storage and cloud services, making the data centers that provide them a crucial part of modern infrastructure. A mass of data center construction is currently underway in the U.S., and tech companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars a year to meet AI demand. Telecommunications companies, banks, hospitals and energy suppliers all rely on them. “Data centers are now on the critical path for modern digital infrastructure,” Kirk Cameron, founding director of the Institute for Advanced Computing at Vir...