April 7, 2026 Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has warned it will target U.S.-linked technology infrastructure, including a $30 billion AI data centre in Abu Dhabi, if Iran’s power facilities are attacked. The threat explicitly names the so-called Stargate AI data centre and follows reported disruptions to some Amazon AWS facilities linked to recent strikes.
The warning was delivered by IRGC spokesperson Brigadier General Ebrahim Zolfaghari in a public video statement, where he said U.S. or Israeli action against Iran’s power infrastructure would trigger retaliation against “all power plants, energy infrastructure, and information and communications technology” tied to U.S. interests in the region.
The video also highlighted the Abu Dhabi site, zooming in on what appeared to be an undeveloped desert area before overlaying imagery showing a large data centre footprint.
A caption in the footage stated, “Nothing stays hidden to our sight, though hidden by Google,” suggesting the facility had been deliberately obscured in public mapping tools.
The Stargate facility is described as a large-scale AI data centre project in the Gulf, representing significant investment in regional compute infrastructure. While details remain limited, its inclusion in the warning signals that AI infrastructure is now being treated alongside traditional energy assets in geopolitical risk calculations.
The threat comes after reports that recent rocket strikes caused enough damage to disrupt operations at some Amazon Web Services data centres. No detailed assessment of the extent or duration of those outages has been publicly confirmed, but the incidents mark a rare example of physical disruption to hyperscale cloud infrastructure.
Iran has also issued warnings in recent weeks against multiple U.S. technology companies, including Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and Google, broadening the scope beyond a single facility or provider.
The situation highlights a shift in how digital infrastructure is viewed in conflict scenarios. Large-scale data centres, particularly those supporting AI workloads, are increasingly central to economic and operational systems, placing them closer to the category of strategic assets traditionally occupied by power plants and telecommunications networks.
