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Data gotten and evaluated by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and regions (data centers) in the Middle East and North Africa revealed that the region's countries rely heavily on American companies for cloud services. The information reveals the existence of around 31 American centers, the majority 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 few years, cloud service centers have shifted from a "technical alternative" for minimizing server expenses into crucial facilities for the state and the economy: e-government websites, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of big data, synthetic intelligence, and more. The recent Iran war (2026) exposed a new dimension: the cloud itself can be directly and physically targeted, as occurred when Iranian drone strikes damaged Amazon AWS cloud service data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, causing interruptions and service interruptions.

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

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Section 2713 explicitly compels communications and computing service suppliers to maintain and reveal subscriber information within their "ownership, custody, or control, regardless of whether it is situated within or outside the United States" verifying the point above., as presented by U.S

At the very same time, experts contacted by "Arabi Post" alert of the threats of focusing agreements with American cloud service providers, and of the impact of "foreign jurisdiction" on personal privacy and security.

ANSR July GCC PRs 50DR+

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citizens or homeowners who engage with people or companies in those nations where data centers operated by American companies store the data of those nations and their residents. To comprehend the scope of this risk, it is needed to first take a look at U.S. federal laws such as FISA Section 702 and the CLOUD Act, which governs U.S.

Although the CLOUD Act grants Washington broad authority to access information saved in data centersthe massive infrastructure utilized by companies to store and process informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities might be required to inform the federal government of the nation concerned that there is a legal basis compelling access to that data.

The U.S. federal government could likewise penalize or target any U.S. citizen who participates in monetary transactions with that country or sends money transfers to individuals there. Abu Al-Saad also states that if a conflict were to happen in between that country and Washington, the United States could suspend its information storage services for that nation and justify doing so.

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

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federal intelligence and security agencies. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the capability to oblige significant innovation business to turn over delicate data related to residents or nations. Washington could, for instance, force Amazon to open data records coming from users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or somewhere else, while "enforcing a stringent nondisclosure order that avoids the innovation business from informing the Bahraini government or the targeted people that this access has actually taken location.