Iran Flags AI Sites as OpenAI’s $30B Stargate UAE Is Built

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said in an interview with the outlet Drop Site that “in the event of a war, cables, data centers, and artificial intelligence facilities could also be in our crosshairs.” Iran’s Borna news agency published the full interview. The Guardian reported on 22 October 2026 that Rezaei said Iran would strike oil facilities, undersea cables, datacentres and AI facilities across as many as seven countries in the Gulf in the event of a fresh US-Israeli attack.

The warning lands on the Gulf’s AI build-out. Stargate UAE, the 1-gigawatt first phase of the UAE-US AI Campus in Abu Dhabi, is a $30 billion project, Reuters reported on 11 September. Reuters also reported that two Amazon Web Services data centres in the UAE and one in Bahrain were damaged in attacks in March. As we read it, AI capacity is now named alongside oil in the region’s risk map.

Business Pill · SOVEREIGN AI

A short Business Engineer explainer on sovereign AI: who controls the model and the data. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about any company or country in this piece.

What Was Said

• Rezaei. Asked by Drop Site about a warning from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Rezaei said: “The US has valuable assets in the region. In the event of a war, cables, data centers, and artificial intelligence facilities could also be in our crosshairs. If the conflict reignites, we will have a much broader plan.”
• The economic argument. Rezaei also said: “The message is not that Iran wants to destroy the Persian Gulf’s energy system. The message is that one cannot create an arrangement where Iran’s economic arteries are attacked, but the economic architecture enabling those attacks is considered untouched and immune.”
• Cables. Al-Monitor reported on 22 October that the IRGC’s political chief, Brig. Gen. Yadollah Javani, warned that Iran could target undersea internet cables passing through Hormuz if the United States or its allies attack Iranian infrastructure.
• The condition. Each warning is conditional on a renewed attack. Rezaei said a better alternative is “a security arrangement where energy facilities, shipping lanes, and civilian infrastructure are mutually removed from the war.”

What Sits in the Region

The table lists the Gulf AI projects with the capacity or cost their sources give. They are plans and projections, not live capacity.

Figures are planned or projected capacity as each source states it, not capacity in operation. The rows overlap: Stargate UAE is the first phase of the UAE-US AI Campus, so the figures cannot be added up.

What Has Already Happened

• The AWS damage. Two AWS data centres in the UAE and one in Bahrain were damaged in attacks in March, and the company’s cloud services in the region were still disrupted, Reuters reported on 11 September.
• The video warning. In April, Iran’s armed forces issued a video warning that Stargate UAE was also a potential target, Reuters reported.
• The revised plan. The UAE was quietly revising plans for the 5-gigawatt project after the Iran war prompted a rethink of how and where critical infrastructure should be built, six people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The project will now likely comprise a network of data centers spread across the UAE, according to four of the sources.
• G42’s answer. G42 told Reuters that work on the AI campus was progressing as planned and said: “The project’s specifics are subject to continuous review in line with the security, resilience and operational standards expected of critical infrastructure at this scale.”

The Arithmetic

• 2 to 3 GW by 2030. S&P says the UAE and Saudi Arabia will presumably add around 2 to 3 gigawatts of IT power and account for more than 80% of the region’s data centre capacity by 2030, Khaleej Times reported.
• About $22 billion to $39 billion to build. At the 451 Research averages of about $11 million per megawatt in the UAE and $13 million per megawatt in Saudi Arabia for 2026 to 2030, 2 to 3 gigawatts would cost roughly $22 billion to $39 billion to build, by our arithmetic. This is illustrative: it applies the low and high averages to the low and high capacity.
• $30 billion for 1 GW. Reuters’ $30 billion for Stargate UAE’s 1 gigawatt is about $30 million per megawatt, by our arithmetic, against 451 Research’s $11 million average build cost in the UAE. Reuters does not break the $30 billion down.
• More than $30 billion across the GCC. Analysys Mason said in December 2025 that public announcements point to more than USD30 billion being invested in GCC countries to establish AI data-centre capacity between now and 2030.

Connecting the Coverage

• Our piece on AWS me-central-1 covers the damage to three AWS facilities in the Gulf in March and the recovery that followed.
• Our piece on Nebius at NEOM covers Humain and DataVolt’s 360MW first phase and Nebius’s planned 50MW.
• Our data-centre map tracks the AI build-out by company and site.

The Structural Read

As we read it, AI capacity has joined energy as infrastructure that carries geopolitical risk in the Gulf. Rezaei tied the data-centre remark to what he called the United States’ “valuable assets in the region”.

As we read it, the cost of that risk shows up in design before it shows up in damage. Reuters reported that the UAE is likely to spread the 5-gigawatt project across a network of sites and is considering air defences and building some facilities underground.

As we read it, the bet for partners such as OpenAI, Oracle and Nvidia is that the Gulf’s energy and capital outweigh the security cost. G42 says work on the campus is progressing as planned.

Three Implications

FOR AI CLOUD BUYERS Reuters reported that AWS’s cloud services in the region were still disrupted months after its UAE and Bahrain data centres were damaged in March.

FOR BUILDERS AND PARTNERS Reuters reported that the UAE is considering air defences, blast-resistant concrete, backup power and cooling systems, and building some facilities underground.

FOR INVESTORS Analysys Mason counts more than USD30 billion of announced GCC AI data-centre investment to 2030, and S&P expects Saudi additions to come later in the decade.

The Business Engineer Lens

This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework AI’s Geopolitical Chokepoint.

The framework says the physical foundation of AI is “a fundamental constraint on the speed of AI transformation, and it’s creating geopolitical leverage that operates independently of who has the best models.”

As we read it, Rezaei’s warning applies that idea to the Gulf: leverage over AI capacity that has nothing to do with which lab has the best model. The framework was published in December 2025, is about minerals and processing, and does not discuss Iran or the Gulf.

What Is Not Established

Rezaei’s and Javani’s remarks are conditional threats tied to a renewed attack. The sources we read do not report a strike on an AI facility after the March attacks Reuters described. We read Rezaei’s interview in Borna’s English transcript, not on Drop Site itself. We could not read Al Arabiya’s report, and Al-Monitor’s article only up to its paywall. The capacity figures are plans and projections from different sources and dates, and the cost range is our illustrative arithmetic.

Reuters’ account of the UAE’s revised plan rests on people familiar with the matter, and G42 says work is progressing as planned.

The Bottom Line

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary said data centres and AI facilities could be targets if war resumes, The Guardian and Iran’s Borna reported. The Gulf is planning gigawatts of AI capacity, led by Stargate UAE, a 1-gigawatt, $30 billion first phase of a 5-gigawatt campus, according to Reuters. Three AWS data centres in the region were damaged in March, Reuters reported.