On July 22, ORF America and the RAND Corporation hosted a closed, virtual roundtable to discuss the implications of AI infrastructure and data centers being targeted and damaged in Persian Gulf countries during the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The conversation focused on how the conflict and rising physical security risks to data centers and related communications and energy infrastructure are shaping the global AI infrastructure buildout.

The meeting brought together a group of experts from government and the private sector to assess how emerging physical and hybrid threats, including drones, missiles, and cyber attacks, are affecting investment decisions, insurance, resilience, and security considerations for AI infrastructure in the Gulf and beyond. Key questions emerged regarding responsibility for the costs associated with data loss and service disruption, operational continuity and data sovereignty considerations, and potential mechanisms to mitigate risk in an era of exceptionally high global demand for AI compute capacity.