Iran threatens ‘complete and utter annihilation’ of OpenAI's $30B Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi — regime posts video with satellite imagery of ChatGPT-maker's premier 1GW data center

Even a decade ago the statement would have been complete lunacy.

You should’ve said to triple dog dare em.

It would be like the single most popular thing the Iran could do at this point.

Someone start a petition to deliver to Iran

Noo, you're going to hurt so many people. Like 10 or so people will be so sad. :((

But when you dig into the history of the US in the 20th and 21st centuries, you start to notice this isn’t just a “Trump” thing. Outside of WW1 and WW2 (though the US had spurious reasons for joining WW1), the US has been the bad guys in every other instance.

The US is the imperialist hegemon, Trump has just been more open about it.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I would be in favor of destroying these data centers regardless of the president.

Maybe this is the exit strategy all along for the AI bubble.

Either that or it's the trigger that gets Trump to bail out the industry. "We need this to win the war" is the new "to big to fail."

I hope you're right though

I'm guessing they're gonna do it if the US attacks their infrastructure further. They're using the threat as leverage.

They'll do it Tuesday. You mean like that kind of "stop talking"?

Except for the environment and also everyone wanting cheap GPUs and SSDs.

Iron Sheik (RIP) vs. Sgt. Slaughter 2026

first thing pop into my mind as well. lol

Iran has frequently announced targets and given warnings to evacuate. It's been surreal that they've continued to sound like the adults after years of being told how evil they are. The US is indiscriminately bombing everything, while Iran seems to be playing the long game of building an international case for reparations and prosecution.

I mean what are they gonna do, move the data center out of strike range?

On the other hand, if my workplace was on a list of announced missile targets, I'd stay away.

Assuming that there's no real chance of their enemy setting up a defense in time:

• It reduces probability of civilian causalities (improves their international image, reduces incentives for affected people to join the fight against them)
• If there is some failure in the attack and the center isn't disabled, they still reduced productivity. I'd say indefinitely
• Tactic could theoretically be used to threaten or feint. For example, publicly list five target but only bother bombing three, and you get the benefits of scaring away people at the other two without spending weapons. This could also be used to manipulate enemy logistics, like moving their defenses or response teams to one place and then attacking another.

Unlike a certain "country" nearby that does so without warning, and then a second time to take out the rescue groups trying to save children as well

That's cause they don't actually want to strike them. They will if they have to, but their goal is to prevent the US from hitting their civilian infrastructure by telling them what they'll hit in retaliation.
And the data centers are only step 1.
Iran could kill the Gulf States entirely by hitting the desalination plants.

Well you don't want civilians there.

It isn't when you have complete tactical superiority and you want to intimidate your opppnents

It's cause UAE did a big chunk of the funding and wanted it to be built there in order to market themselves as a tech hub.

So you can burn more cheap fuel

No it isn’t. These American tech companies made the mistake of taking contracts from the US military, and are legitimate targets.

Their argument is that the big tech companies are allowing their AI to be used to help target Iran (which they obviously are). This would arguably make the data centers powering the AI a legitimate military target

It’s a war crime

like bombing schools?