Data Centers Now Military Targets: New Tech Risk

Data centers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have recently become targets of unprecedented drone and missile attacks. These strikes have caused widespread disruption to cloud services affecting millions and resulted in the permanent loss of some Amazon Web Services customer data. This new reality poses a significant threat to Big Tech companies, governments, and society's reliance on digital infrastructure.

To address these emerging concerns, a live discussion is scheduled for November 17 at 1 pm ET. The event will feature Joseph Jarnecki, a senior research fellow focusing on national security and cloud resilience. He has researched Ukraine's efforts to strengthen cloud resilience amidst attacks and explored the implications for NATO and European cloud adoption.

Jarnecki's recent work highlights Iran's strikes on Middle Eastern data centers and the broader impact on governments and Big Tech. Previous coverage indicates significant damage requiring months of repairs, with permanent data loss for some AWS clients. Russia's earlier attacks on Ukraine's data centers also provoked retaliatory strikes on Russian facilities.

The upcoming discussion will examine why data centers are increasingly military targets, the feasibility of hardening them against attacks, and strategies for improving cloud resiliency during conflicts. It will also explore the difficult choices governments and cloud providers face amid growing geopolitical risks.