Iran has issued an explicit threat against the 30 billion dollar Stargate artificial intelligence data center located in the United Arab Emirates, a facility that serves as a key infrastructure node for some of the world’s most influential technology companies, including OpenAI, Nvidia, Cisco, Oracle, and SoftBank. The threat was delivered through a video address by Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who outlined specific retaliatory measures Iran would take should the United States move against Iranian power plant facilities. The statement was unambiguous in its scope, identifying energy infrastructure and information and communication technology assets of what Zolfaghari referred to as the Zionist regime as primary targets, warning they would face complete and utter annihilation. The video notably concluded with footage showing the Stargate UAE facility’s location on a map — hidden from the standard satellite view but revealed through night vision — signalling a clear and deliberate identification of the site as a potential target.
The Stargate UAE project was announced in 2025 by OpenAI, which described the facility as central to its long-term vision of building frontier-scale compute capacity across the world in service of safe, secure, and broadly beneficial artificial general intelligence. The site is planned to deliver one gigawatt of total power and compute capacity, with the first phase of 200 megawatts incorporating approximately 10,000 Nvidia chips. That initial phase had been scheduled to go live this year, prior to the escalation of conflict in the region. It is not entirely clear how much of the facility is currently operational, but a successful strike on the site, or even a sustained threat environment around it, would carry significant consequences for global artificial intelligence infrastructure at a moment when competition for compute capacity is already intense.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has continued to broaden its list of targets as the regional conflict enters its second month, with United States-linked companies including Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Meta also placed in its crosshairs alongside critical energy and telecommunications assets. The threat to Stargate UAE sits within this wider posture and reflects a deliberate strategy of targeting civilian and commercial technology infrastructure as leverage in the standoff with Washington. Reports have also emerged separately that Iranian state media has attributed earlier strikes on Amazon Web Services data centers in the region to this same conflict, further illustrating that cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure has become a new dimension of geopolitical confrontation in the Middle East.
The development places major technology firms in an uncomfortable position, as billions of dollars of committed capital and operational artificial intelligence systems now sit within a conflict zone in ways that were not anticipated at the time these investments were announced. For the broader global technology industry, the situation raises serious questions about the risks of concentrating large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure in geopolitically sensitive regions, and whether the pace of expansion into the Middle East has adequately accounted for the volatility that has now materialised.
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