이란 공격, UAE가 5-GW AI 캠퍼스를 단일 메가 캠퍼스 대신 분산형으로 추진

The United Arab Emirates is reworking plans for a 5-gigawatt AI data center project jointly with the U.S., relocating facilities across the country and incorporating underground sites and air defenses in response to Iranian missile and drone attacks. The project, first announced during President Donald Trump's visit to the UAE in May 2025, was originally planned as a single 10-square-mile (26-square-kilometer) campus in Abu Dhabi but will now likely consist of a distributed network of data centers throughout the country, according to sources who spoke with Reuters.

Under the U.S.-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership, the two countries agreed to cooperate on critical technologies, including a 1-gigawatt AI data center in Abu Dhabi within a planned 5-gigawatt UAE-U.S. AI technology cluster. The cluster aims to provide computing power for growing AI demand across the region while meeting U.S. security standards. Known as Stargate UAE, the first phase of the $30 billion facility is already under construction, with its first 200 megawatts expected to come online this year.

G42, an AI company controlled by Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al Nahyan—the UAE's national security adviser and brother of President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan—leads the project in partnership with U.S. technology companies. The company told Reuters that work on the AI campus is progressing as planned while noting that the project's specifics are under continuous review to meet the security, resilience, and operational standards expected of critical infrastructure at this scale.

The security redesign includes modifications to protect the first-phase site from aerial attacks, with the remaining project spread across multiple locations. Officials are considering underground facilities for sites holding sensitive data, including military information, potentially built inside mountains. Defensive measures include air defenses such as drone and missile interceptors and electronic jamming equipment, along with blast-resistant concrete, backup power systems, and redundant cooling infrastructure.

Emirati officials began reviewing their AI infrastructure plans after Iran began firing missiles and drones at Gulf neighbors hosting American forces, in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli airstrikes against Iran. In March, two Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE were directly hit by drone strikes, while a separate drone strike near an AWS facility in Bahrain also caused physical damage. The strikes damaged infrastructure, disrupted power, and in some cases triggered fire suppression efforts that caused additional water damage, according to AWS.

The damage disrupted cloud services across both regions, affecting Amazon EC2, S3, DynamoDB, and Lambda. In the UAE, two of the region's three availability zones were significantly impaired, while one continued to operate normally. AWS warned that recovery would take time given the extent of the physical damage.

Iran's armed forces warned in April that Stargate UAE could become a potential target and released a video displaying a map of the planned complex. People familiar with the project confirmed that the site is located near Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts U.S. troops and has been targeted during the regional conflict.