Iran declares US tech giants, American, Israeli banks in region as targets

Iran has said that it will target American and Israeli economic centres and financial institutions in response to an attack on one of the country’s banks a day earlier. 

A spokesperson for Khatam-al-Anbiya, described by the United Nations as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-controlled entity, said that “the enemy left our hands open to target economic centres and banks belonging to the United States and the Zionist regime in the region,” according to Tasnim News Agency. 

Iranian state-owned Bank Sepah came under attack when one of its Tehran-based branches was hit by a missile attack in the late hours of Wednesday night. 

“The people of the region should not be within a one-kilometre radius of banks,” the spokesperson added. 

Additionally, Iran has issued a list of major American tech giants with regional operations as ‘legitimate targets.’ 

The list includes offices and assets of tech colossi including those associated with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, IBM, Oracle and Palantir in Israel and around the region.

“With the expansion of the regional war into an infrastructure war, the scope of Iran’s legitimate targets gradually becomes broader,” the post read.

The Middle East has become a hotbed for global tech companies looking to build substantial local presence and ride the tech wave. Dubai has become an increasingly preferred destination for tech companies to base additional staff to advance the emirate's ambition of pushing deeper across diverse industries, including technology.

Microsoft operates a major regional office in Abu Dhabi while Dubai hosts regional headquarters for tech titans, including Meta and Google. 

American hyperscalers and tech giants including OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA have bet big on the GCC region, partaking in launching infrastructure and initiatives including Stargate, the next-gen AI infrastructure cluster within the 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI Campus, to serve companies operating within 2,000 miles of the UAE's border. 

However, the region’s digital infrastructure has been increasing susceptible to Iranian attacks in recent days. Three AWS data centres in the UAE and Bahrain sustained drone attacks last week, prompting digital banking and connectivity outages that lasted several days. 

The GCC data center market is set to double from $3.48 billion in 2024 to $9.49 billion by 2030, driven by cloud computing, AI demand, and 2030 initiatives in Saudi Arabia and UAE.