The key facts

  • Russia carried out strikes on data centers in Kyiv, and Ukrainian drones attacked several data centers in Russia; Kyiv says the targets were facilities providing cash flows for Moscow's war machine.
  • Paryavi: building a single data center can cost up to $25 billion and take up to three years; Europe should act as a single bloc and possibly slow down construction.
  • The European Commission launched a tender for up to seven AI gigafactories; no specific answer on revising the plans due to military risks has followed.

Data centers as military targets

Data centers in Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East have become key targets in conflicts: taking them out of action can temporarily paralyze a country's economy and the work of banks, hospitals and other socially important institutions. According to Euronews, Russia carried out strikes on data centers in Kyiv, and Ukrainian drones in recent weeks attacked several data centers on Russian territory. Kyiv said these attacks target facilities that provide cash flows for Moscow's war machine.

The UN adviser's opinion

Mehdi Paryavi, a UN adviser and founder of the think tank International Data Center Authority (IDCA), believes that military targeting of data centers should prompt Europe to reconsider where it builds AI infrastructure. 'If you hit enough key facilities, you can bring down an entire economy,' he told Euronews Next. According to him, in the context of digitalization, taking a data center out of action means 'paralysis of the army's functions, the healthcare system and the financial sector.' The importance of such facilities grows especially in wartime, since Ukraine uses AI for guiding strike drones and other military tasks.

Protecting infrastructure

Paryavi believes that the industry's long-standing recommendations — carefully choosing sites and keeping their locations secret — are no longer enough. 'Perhaps missile defense systems like the Iron Dome are needed, perhaps they need to be built underground or in bunkers,' he noted, declining to give details for national security reasons. In his view, the times when data centers were built in random places are over. At the same time, he acknowledged that no country yet has a clear answer on how to provide protection without slowing the race to scale up AI capacity.

Europe's plans

Asked whether the strikes would force European governments to reconsider plans to build AI gigafactories, Paryavi replied: '100 percent.' A European Commission spokesperson told Euronews Next that a tender has been launched to create up to seven AI gigafactories across Europe: 'The competition is still open. Once it is completed, the proposals will be evaluated and then decisions on allocation will be made.' Applications close on 12 November. However, no specific answer was given to the question of whether the targeted destruction of data centers in wars will lead to a revision of these plans.

Economic risks and a call for unity

Paryavi believes the economic damage from damaged data centers could be astronomical and, for many countries including European states, practically irreparable. Building a single data center can cost up to $25 billion and take up to three years. 'Europe cannot afford to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in such assets only for someone to simply destroy them,' he said, adding that he expects a slowdown of the entire data center construction process. He called on European states to act as a single front, since no country can cope alone: security risks are compounded by a global energy shortage and a shortage of skilled personnel. Instead of scattered facilities, he proposed creating large data center clusters that can be protected with a single missile defense system, concluding that 'building data centers and digital hubs remains the only way' to ensure security for a state, a regional hub or the operators of such centers.