How to Build Roadmaps for AI in 2026

Data acquired and evaluated by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and regions (data centers) in the Middle East and North Africa exposed that the area's countries rely heavily on American business for cloud services. The data reveals the existence of around 31 American centers, many of them in Gulf countries, while the variety of centers owned by Chinese business reached about 7.

In the Gulf nations, more than 53% of the cloud infrastructure tracked there is American. Source: "Arabi Post" database of cloud service centers in the Middle East and North Africa (89 centers).

Within a couple of years, cloud service centers have moved from a "technical alternative" for reducing server expenses into critical infrastructure for the state and the economy: e-government portals, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of big information, expert system, and more. The recent Iran war (2026) exposed a new measurement: the cloud itself can be straight and physically targeted, as occurred when Iranian drone strikes harmed Amazon AWS cloud service information centers in the UAE and Bahrain, causing interruptions and service blackouts.

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

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Area 2713 explicitly compels interactions and calculating provider to protect and divulge customer information within their "possession, custody, or control, regardless of whether it lies within or outside the United States" confirming the point above. (Click an image to see it full size.) This dependence also intersects with the context of cross-border intelligence event under structures such as FISA Section 702, as presented by U.S

At the very same time, specialists contacted by "Arabi Post" warn of the risks of focusing agreements with American cloud provider, and of the impact of "foreign jurisdiction" on personal privacy and security. Between issues over sovereignty and the marketplace's requirement for ready-made facilities, the importance of information localization policies and the limits of cross-border information flows is growing, as talked about in worldwide reports such as those by the OECD.

ANSR July GCC PRs 50DR+

How to Build Roadmaps for AI in 2026

people or locals who communicate with people or companies in those countries where data centers run by American business store the data of those nations and their citizens. To understand the scope of this risk, it is required to initially analyze 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 access data kept in information centersthe large-scale facilities used by companies to store and process informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities may be needed to notify the government of the nation concerned that there is a legal basis engaging access to that data.

The U.S. government might also punish or target any U.S. person who participates in monetary deals with that country or sends out cash transfers to people there. Abu Al-Saad also says that if a dispute were to occur between that nation and Washington, the United States might suspend its information storage services for that country and validate doing so.

ANSR July GCC PRs 50DR+

This would impact all sectors, consisting of monetary and banking services. In the context of the security risks connected to nations' reliance on American information centers, another point also emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad thinks about the most crucial and most harmful: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool called "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security firms. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the capability to oblige significant technology companies to turn over sensitive information associated with citizens or nations. Washington could, for example, force Amazon to open data records belonging to users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or elsewhere, while "imposing a stringent nondisclosure order that prevents the innovation company from informing the Bahraini government or the targeted people that this gain access to has actually occurred.