Modern warfare is increasingly targeting the physical infrastructure behind the internet—especially the data centers that power cloud computing, communications, and artificial intelligence. Once thought to exist purely in the digital realm and to be protected mainly from cyberattacks, the “cloud” is in fact a network of physical facilities that could become strategic military targets in conflicts, according to Macdonald Amoah, Morgan Bazilian, and Jahara Matisek of The National Interest. They write:

For most of the digital age, data centers were treated as background infrastructure, the quiet commercial machinery behind the abstraction called “the cloud.” They hosted financial systems, communications networks, logistics software, and, increasingly, the computing power behind artificial intelligence (AI). Hackers, ransomware, and cyber breaches were the primary threats to these systems. Now, those have become old problems.  […]

As governments, corporations, and militaries grow more dependent on concentrated cloud infrastructure, the facilities housing that computing power are now strategic infrastructure. Data centers are no longer just anonymous commercial properties tucked behind the digital economy. They are becoming part of the strategic rear: fixed, valuable, energy-hungry infrastructure whose disruption can impose immediate economic and operational costs.  […]

That concentration is precisely what gives data centers strategic relevance. The more economic activity, state administration, and AI capacity are routed through a relatively small number of high-value computing hubs, the more attractive those hubs become as targets in wartime. […]

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As digital systems become central to national security and military operations, governments must treat data centers as critical infrastructure. This means dispersing them geographically and preparing for both cyber and physical attacks, rather than assuming that redundancy in a single region is sufficient.

Both companies and governments need to recognize the cloud’s physical vulnerabilities. Geographic dispersion reduces regional risk, while major hubs should be part of civil-defense and continuity planning. Resilience must go beyond cybersecurity, with stronger power, cooling, connectivity, and contingency systems. Concentrating economic and AI assets in a few locations creates strategic targets, making the cloud’s physical components—cables, power, land, and buildings—key considerations in modern warfare.