What happened
According to Ars Technica, during 2026 drone and missile attacks caused unprecedented damage to data centers located in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The source article indicates that these incidents disrupted cloud services for millions of people and caused the permanent deletion of some Amazon Web Services customer data. According to the outlet, this is a phenomenon that affects large technology companies but also governments and anyone who depends on common digital services.
Why the issue matters
The novelty lies not only in the severity of the physical damage but in the fact that the cloud is described as exposed to kinetic strikes and not only to cyber threats. Ars Technica links this evolution to modern society's growing dependence on shared digital infrastructure. The point is therefore resilience: the ability of those services to withstand or continue operating when the physical infrastructure is hit.
The source also cites the case of Iran and the drone and missile attacks against Amazon data centers in the Middle East, which occurred during the conflict between the United States and Israel against Iran, and the reciprocal exchange of attacks between Russia and Ukraine targeting each other's data centers. These references are attributed to research and comments by Joseph Jarnecki, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British think tank active in defense and security.
The scheduled discussion
Ars Technica has announced a live conversation titled "Drone attacks and data centers: New Risks for Big Tech", scheduled for Tuesday, November 17 at 1 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time, streamed on YouTube. The event will feature Jarnecki himself, who, according to the source, leads RUSI's work on how cloud services affect national security and defense, as well as on technological sovereignty efforts.
The announced topics include the reasons why data centers have become more significant military targets, the realistic possibility of defending or hardening them against drones and missiles, how to improve cloud resilience under wartime conditions, and the choices governments and providers must confront in an era of growing geopolitical risks. The source specifies that Jarnecki has also studied how Ukraine strengthened its cloud resilience with Western partners at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, despite cyber and kinetic attacks.
What remains to be verified
The available material is an editorial announcement accompanied by references to previous articles from the same outlet. No detailed figures on the damage, complete lists of the data centers hit, or independent confirmations are provided. The exact scope of the disruptions, the extent of AWS data permanently lost, and the protection measures actually adopted by cloud providers therefore remain to be verified. According to the source, the November 17 discussion is expected to include time for some audience questions.
