Future of Warfare

As artificial intelligence becomes central to military planning and targeting, the infrastructure that powers the digital economy — data centres, cloud systems and AI platforms — is increasingly emerging as a strategic battlefield

- DIPANKAR DEY

Data centres — the physical buildings that house all the infrastructure required to power banking apps, cloud services, and artificial intelligence platforms — are the new targets during the ongoing war involving Israel, the USA, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Amazon said two of its data centres in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were hit by drone strikes on March 1, and a third centre in Bahrain was damaged by debris from a nearby strike. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the attacks, telling their state media that the attacks were 'aimed to identify the role of these centres in supporting the enemy's military and intelligence activities. The strikes swiftly brought the war directly into the lives of 11 million people in the UAE, nine out of 10 of whom are foreign nationals. Millions of people in Dubai and Abu Dhabi woke up the next morning unable to pay for a taxi, order food delivery, or check their bank balance on their mobile apps. Iran warned that US tech firms, including Google, Microsoft, and Palantir, could become targets as the war expands.

AI's unprecedented use in the Iran crisis signals profound changes in the way the world wages war. The U.S. military was able to strike a blistering 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of its attack on Iran, thanks in part to its use of artificial intelligence. The military has used Claude, the AI tool from Anthropic, combined with Palantir's Maven system, for real-time targeting and target prioritisation in support of combat operations in Iran and Venezuela.