Here’s a sentence that I find bone-chilling, to be honest:
“This is reportedly the first known wartime strike on a major hyperscale cloud provider’s infrastructure.”
This sentence was written by ChatGPT, in response to my request to summarize recent events in the Gulf region, specifically the disruption to cloud services due to Iranian attacks on cloud infrastructure in the Gulf region.
And there is a lot of such infrastructure in the region. Billions of dollars worth. And these data centers are uniquely vulnerable. Just take a look at this map by Reuters.
To quote, from Amazon’s continuously updated status page:
Mar 02 4:22 PM PST We are providing an update on the ongoing service disruptions affecting the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region (ME-CENTRAL-1) and the AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region (ME-SOUTH-1). Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, both affected regions have experienced physical impacts to infrastructure as a result of drone strikes. In the UAE, two of our facilities were directly struck, while in Bahrain, a drone strike in close proximity to one of our facilities caused physical impacts to our infrastructure. These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage. We are working closely with local authorities and prioritizing the safety of our personnel throughout our recovery efforts.
Welcome to the 21st century, I suppose. Our technology is amazing, but we are still the same violent, stupid monkeys as before. “War,” goes the motto of the Fallout family of computer games, “War never changes.”