By John Liu, Lisa Eadicicco, CNN
Hong Kong/New York (CNN) — President Donald Trump arrived in the Middle East last spring, making deals that would vault the Gulf into the global race for artificial intelligence.
Accompanied by an entourage of Big Tech CEOs during the trip from OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Amazon’s Andy Jassy, Trump hailed a region “forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos” at an address in Riyadh.
Nine months later, the Iran conflict has led to drone and missile strikes on data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, disrupting critical cloud infrastructure, knocking some digital services offline, and throwing the American president’s vision – as well as the Gulf region’s AI ambitions – into question.
Countries including the UAE and Saudi Arabia have bet heavily on AI to diversify and transform their oil-reliant economies. And American tech giants like Amazon, OpenAI and Microsoft see the Gulf states’ abundant and cheap energy and vast land as key to their AI infrastructure buildouts.
But an extended war could change that calculus, analysts warned.
“If it goes on for a couple months, I think you have to reassess just about everything,” said Paul Meeks, head of technology research at investment bank Freedom Capital Markets.
A post-oil plan
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and beyond count AI as a core pillar of their post-oil economic strategies, positioning themselves as AI superpower contenders in a heated global race.
The ambition has begun to bear fruit. With tens of billions committed to AI infrastructure like data centers and partnerships with leading global tech firms, Gulf countries have surged in funding and readiness rankings.
Last August, research and advisory firm Gartner projected that the technology spending by Middle East countries would reach $155 billion in 2025, with $9.5 billion allocated to data center investments – a nearly 70% jump from the previous year.
As part of the deals Trump helped broker last year, Amazon, Nvidia and others struck multibillion dollar partnerships with Saudi Arabia’s state-backed AI startup Humain to build “AI factories.” In the UAE, Trump inked deal with the country to build the largest data center complex outside the US in Abu Dhabi.
AI infrastructure at risk
But as the war deepens, Iran has threatened attacks against the “enemy’s technological infrastructure” linked to companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Nvidia amd Palantir. Threats to critical infrastructure, from oil facilities to desalination plants – could also affect energy- and water-intensive data centers.
“The war is leaving data center investment up in the air,” said Ginger Matchett, a geostrategist at Washington-based think tank the Atlantic Council. “Protection of data centers to date has largely focused on preventing cyberattacks, not drone or missile attacks physically damaging the infrastructure.”
Last week, Amazon reported disruptions to its Bahrain data center services because of the war, following similar Iranian drone attacks on two of its data centers in the UAE and another in Bahrain earlier this month. Amazon declined to comment further on the extent of the damage beyond its website updates.
On top of training AI, data centers – made up of supercomputers running around the clock – underpin digital services and store vast amounts of data. Damage to Amazon’s facilities in the region has interrupted many websites and triggered app outages.
For now, Amazon has helped customers to migrate their workloads to data centers in other regions as disruptions persist.
Yet physical security of these complexes is only part of the risk. Attacks on desalination plants, which convert seawater into potable water and are critical in the arid Middle East, could pose additional challenges for these facilities, which require water for cooling purposes.
Fundamental advantages remain
Analysts, however, remain cautiously optimistic if the conflict subsides within weeks.
Given the enormous electricity demands, energy has been the primary bottleneck for AI data center expansion – with power availability and cost largely determine where facilities are built.
The Gulf states’ ample oil reserves, deep pockets and strong government backing make the region “unmatched” in many respects for AI investments, said Marc Einstein, research director focusing on AI at Counterpoint Research, a market intelligence firm.
“They’re very resolute that the show is going to go on,” he said. “The future is still very bright for AI in the region, but timelines may have been impacted.”
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping route key for about 20% of the world’s crude consumption according to the International Energy Agency, could also add urgency to the region’s diversification efforts.
“If anything, these governments might say, ‘hey, you know what? We need to go even faster into AI and other things because look at what can happen,’” Einstein said.
Long term effects uncertain
Amazon and Microsoft declined to comment on whether the conflict has affected their investment plans in the region. CNN has also reached out to Google and Oracle, which have also announced major AI investment in the region, for comment.
But Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon’s cloud computing division which runs the data centers, told CNN in a previous interview earlier this month that he feels “as bullish as I ever have” about investing in the Middle East in the long term.
While physical risks to AI infrastructure are a concern, analysts say the war’s economic fallout will have a bigger influence on tech spending.
If the US Federal Reserve holds off on interest rate cuts because the war sparks inflation, financing costs for tech companies could climb higher, said David Miller, chief investment officer and senior portfolio manager at Catalyst Funds.
But it all depends on how long the conflict lasts, leaving tech giants in wait-and-see mode, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.
“If it’s elongated, they’re going to have to go to the drawing board, delay plans and look to curtail other plans,” said Ives. “Because this was never on the roadmap.”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
Trump helped build the Middle East’s AI ambitions. Could his war break them? News Channel 3-12.
Hence then, the article about trump helped build the middle east s ai ambitions could his war break them was published today ( ) and is available on News channel ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Trump helped build the Middle East’s AI ambitions. Could his war break them? )
Also on site :