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Information obtained and evaluated by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and areas (information centers) in the Middle East and North Africa exposed that the region's countries rely heavily on American companies for cloud services. The data shows the existence of around 31 American centers, many of them in Gulf countries, while the number of centers owned by Chinese companies reached about 7.

In the Gulf countries, more than 53% of the cloud infrastructure tracked there is American. Iran, meanwhile, appears to be a remarkable case amongst all the region's nations, as it relies entirely on a 100% regional cloud environment. 89cloud centers throughout 22 countries 35%American companies' share (31 centers) 53%Gulf dependence on U.S.

Click any indicate see information about the center, consisting of the operating business, its nationality, and the year it was released. Use the filters to focus on a specific citizenship, or search for a specific center or nation. Source: "Arabi Post" database of cloud service centers in the Middle East and North Africa (89 centers).

Within a few years, cloud service centers have actually moved from a "technical choice" for decreasing server costs into crucial infrastructure for the state and the economy: e-government websites, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of big data, expert system, and more. However the current Iran war (2026) revealed a brand-new measurement: the cloud itself can be straight and physically targeted, as taken place when Iranian drone strikes damaged Amazon AWS cloud service data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, triggering disruptions and service failures.

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The significance of American and foreign companies does not stop at technical competitors or service quality; it extends to digital sovereignty and questions of control over data for these countries and their numerous delicate sectors. American business go through U.S. laws controling lawful access to information, such as the CLOUD Act, raising concerns about the limits of judicial requests for data even when it is kept outside the United States.

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Section 2713 clearly forces communications and computing provider to maintain and disclose customer data within their "possession, custody, or control, despite whether it lies within or outside the United States" verifying the point above. (Click an image to see it complete size.) This reliance also intersects with the context of cross-border intelligence gathering under frameworks such as FISA Area 702, as presented by U.S

At the very same time, specialists gotten in touch with by "Arabi Post" alert of the risks of concentrating contracts with American cloud service companies, and of the effect of "foreign jurisdiction" on privacy and security. Between issues over sovereignty and the marketplace's requirement for ready-made infrastructure, the importance of information localization policies and the limitations of cross-border information streams is growing, as gone over in worldwide reports such as those by the OECD.

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citizens or locals who interact with individuals or organizations in those countries where data centers run by American business save the information of those nations and their residents. To understand the scope of this risk, it is necessary to initially examine U.S. federal laws such as FISA Area 702 and the CLOUD Act, which governs U.S.

Although the CLOUD Act grants Washington broad authority to gain access to information stored in information centersthe large-scale infrastructure utilized by business to store and procedure informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities might be required to notify the federal government of the nation worried that there is a legal basis compelling access to that information.

The U.S. federal government could also punish or target any U.S. resident who participates in financial transactions with that nation or sends money transfers to people there. Abu Al-Saad also says that if a disagreement were to occur between that nation and Washington, the United States could suspend its information storage services for that country and justify doing so.

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This would impact all sectors, including financial and banking services. In the context of the security threats connected to countries' dependence on American information centers, another point likewise emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad considers the most crucial and most unsafe: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool called "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security companies. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the capability to oblige significant innovation companies to turn over delicate information related to citizens or nations. Washington could, for example, force Amazon to open information records belonging to users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or elsewhere, while "enforcing a rigorous nondisclosure order that avoids the innovation company from alerting the Bahraini government or the targeted individuals that this access has actually occurred.