Datacenters are becoming a target in warfare for the first time

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/10/datacenters-target-warfare-iran

465 points · 64 comments · view on lemmy.world

64 Comments

Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works · 130 pts · 176d (7 replies)

Even without considering the military use of an AI, that's a lot of expensive and fragile equipment packed into a relatively small building.

T156@lemmy.world · 76 pts · 176d (6 replies)

It's also pretty important infrastructure. Even before AI, one of the major providers datacentres going down would take out a solid chunk of modern internet.

Wammityblam@lemmy.world · 71 pts · 176d (5 replies)

Nothing would make billionaires change their tune about buddying up to this authoritarian regime faster than his actions leading to loss of profits

Imagine if Iran took out crucial infrastructure for AWS

DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf · 47 pts · 176d (1 reply)

Imagine if Iran took out crucial infrastructure for AWS

  • I won't be surprised if they actually do.
Shayeta@feddit.org · 25 pts · 176d

Oh no! us-east-1 is down again!?

Archer@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 176d (2 replies)

Not even terrorism would get companies off of us-east-1 or building availability zone redundant apps

korazail@lemmy.myserv.one · 12 pts · 176d

I used to be corporate IT, and this would have ruined my weekend.... but my CEO donated to McConnell, Trump and the RNC, so fuck them.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 176d

that would be considered act of war, not terrorism

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 79 pts · 176d (1 reply)

Shocked its taken this long.

Residents report following the strike seeing an improvement in water pressure, quality, and oddly - less brownouts.

snooggums@piefed.world · 19 pts · 176d

Less brownout isn't odd when you understand how much power those things draw from the grid.

Cherry@piefed.social · 74 pts · 176d

Who would have thought that all these shiny toys would be so reachable. The rich have parroted this shit and acted untouchable. Its nice to see their infrastructure getting a smack. It like boasting about a fancy watch then walking down the street and getting robbed by a junkie. Tale as old as time.

The innocents in all these countries, and the environments are the ones that suffer the consequence, but what will get noticed is that war hurts production and consumer behavior. Oil scarcity stops people going places, stops stuff hitting the shelves, even the simple mortals like us knew this but the warmongers at the top want to play.

luthis@lemmy.nz · 49 pts · 176d (6 replies)

Iran is playing the game much better than expected. Come on Bezos, if anyone can afford a team of ninja assassins to take out the guy who started this war, you can!

massive_bereavement@fedia.io · 28 pts · 176d (4 replies)

[Chorus] CEO, entrepreneur Born in 1964 Jeffrey, Jeffrey Bezoooos

doeknius_gloek@discuss.tchncs.de · 22 pts · 176d (2 replies)

Fuck their wives, drink their blood

Come on, Jeff, get 'em

datavoid@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 176d (1 reply)

Where is Bo when the world needs him most

bourrelier@jlai.lu · 7 pts · 176d

Still inside I guess.

Ioughttamow@fedia.io · 6 pts · 176d

zuckerberg, gates, and buffet, amateurs can fucking suck it

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 176d

wasn't there a game about hacking datacenters only you hacked them for real

also it was hamsters

TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 176d (3 replies)

Ya! hit those clankers where it hurts!

Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 176d (2 replies)

I can't believe I had to scroll this far down for this...

Like, the data centers. The fucking reason my power bill doubled this year? The ones propping up LLM's that are actively stealing jobs from humans?

They want to attack those?

Okay. Is there a downside to this?

OpenStars@piefed.social · 3 pts · 176d

Uh... lower profit margins for the CEOs?

Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 176d

We already established government breathes for the investors gambling their generational wealth.

Our upsides are promptly neglected if there is any slight hint of potential downside to the billionaires.

qqq@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 176d (1 reply)

The coordinated strike had an immediate impact. Millions of people in Dubai and Abu Dhabi woke up on Monday unable to pay for a taxi, order a food delivery or check their bank balance on their mobile apps.

I honestly can't tell if this paragraph is supposed to be satirical.

Samskara@sh.itjust.works · 21 pts · 176d

Welcome to the present old man.

Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works · 35 pts · 176d (3 replies)

Anyone else a little surprised by the realization that if an enemy took out all datacenters it would actually improve a lot of things and take us back 20 years to the golden age of the internet?

Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 176d

Surprised? No. But that's a lovely thought since most data centers have a net-negative value to people.

moonshadow@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 176d

Anyone taking out data centers is a friend

Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 176d

They want us to become a more educated population and protest against our genocides in the middle east. What a horrifying strategy!

ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · 35 pts · 176d

That's one way to conserve water.

Godric@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 176d (3 replies)

What? Building data centers in a region known for a constant lack of regional stability in order to take advantage of cheap land and labor isn't working out????

HexaBack@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 176d

"yeah but we saved like $0.0001 it's so worth it tho...."

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 175d (1 reply)

And those are cheap because law enforcement isn't so well spent on at all, that is, spending is mostly on secret police, riot police and khashoggizers.

Anyway. Building data centers in an area with hot climate is what seems weirdest. And seawater is not very good for cooling.

JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org · 2 pts · 175d

It makes sense in this region. You have cheap fossil fuels, you have a lot of sun for solar, and Qatar and Dubai and also Saudi Arabia are economic powerhouses with a lot of companies, tourists and so on, so you will of course need a data center.

HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 29 pts · 176d

I don't see why not. Israel attacked oil infrastructure, showing this was as much an economic war as anything else.

xSikes@feddit.online · 29 pts · 176d

Kill data centers not people

horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de · 26 pts · 176d

Will nobody think of the poor GPUs?

phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 22 pts · 176d

I never in a million years would have thought that I would read that headline and think "well that ain't the worst thing in the world..."

FauxLiving@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 176d (2 replies)

I'm sure this will make RAM cheaper

LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 176d (1 reply)

Back in the day, you went dumpster diving for PC parts.

Now, you just sift through the rubble of data centers in war-torn countries.

FauxLiving@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 176d

If my local datacenter exploded I'd join the search and rescue team helping rescue the trapped DDR5.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 176d

considering datacenters use water and don't have regular staff

Siegfried@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 176d (2 replies)

Ok, who we have to fund to get those data centers burning?

hector@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 176d

Bounty system?

Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 176d

It's wild. Most people don't want these in their cities, which is why most people don't even know they are being installed.

Like, fuck these goddamn corpos fucking up our bills so they can make even more money. Fuck data centers.

RalfWausE@feddit.org · 17 pts · 176d (1 reply)
[ removed ]
Xaphanos@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 176d

Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time.

SrMono@feddit.org · 14 pts · 176d (3 replies)

I see Amazon repurposing its delivery drones, or entering the same-day-air-defence-delivery (which would be splendid for Ukraine, too).

YellowParenti@lemmy.wtf · 5 pts · 176d (1 reply)

CEOs jump in the war, pissed at loss of infrastructure. They're yatchs start getting hit too.

Cherry@piefed.social · 7 pts · 176d

Would love to see pics of burned yacht's.

teft@piefed.social · 1 pts · 176d

Make dual purpose drones. When they aren’t delivering packages they’re delivering explosives. Problemo solved-o.

Professorozone@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 176d (5 replies)

The next headline will read something like, "Cancer has become a target in warfare for the first time."

Noodle07@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 176d

Iran to cure cancer to spite USA

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 5 pts · 176d (2 replies)

I'm pretty sure we've declared war on cancer decades ago and have been targeting it for eradication ever since. But like drugs in the war on drugs, cancer is the one that keeps coming out on top.

moonshadow@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 176d (1 reply)

What if we declared war on war, man?

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 2 pts · 176d

Nuke the nukes!

SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 175d

Wouldn't surprise me if the Trump Regime deploys bioweapons, and everybody else scrambling to develop counteragents.

hector@lemmy.today · 14 pts · 176d

Maybe someone will start a bounty program to damage these datacenters? That would be awful! Honestly, scouts honor.

thefluffiest@feddit.nl · 10 pts · 176d

Great I know a few more targets

emotional_soup_88@programming.dev · 10 pts · 176d (2 replies)

Is there a vote system? I'd like to vote on the next target. Looking at you, Big Tech^[Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, and Nvidia]. 👀

jjlinux@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 176d (1 reply)

I know you meant 'targets'. Well played.

emotional_soup_88@programming.dev · 3 pts · 176d

Whoopsie doodle.

nlghtcrawIer@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 176d

Guess war of the world was a prophecy! We owe ice cube an apology :D

nucleative@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 176d (2 replies)

Damn I better check my contracts and see if they have any war or terrorism clauses 😅

how_we_burned@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 176d (1 reply)

Gulp

I work in a DC as well.

I wonder if I qualify for danger pay now

turdburglar@piefed.social · 1 pts · 176d

seems like a pretty good time to unionize