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

In the Gulf countries, more than 53% of the cloud facilities tracked there is American. Iran, meanwhile, seems a remarkable case among all the area's countries, as it relies completely on a 100% regional cloud environment. 89cloud centers throughout 22 nations 35%American business' share (31 centers) 53%Gulf reliance on U.S.

Click on any point to view information about the center, consisting of the operating company, its citizenship, and the year it was launched. Use the filters to focus on a particular 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 shifted from a "technical alternative" for reducing server costs into crucial facilities for the state and the economy: e-government websites, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of huge data, expert system, and more. However the current Iran war (2026) exposed 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, causing interruptions and service blackouts.

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However 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 information for these nations and their numerous sensitive sectors. American companies undergo U.S. laws controling lawful access to data, such as the CLOUD Act, raising concerns about the limitations of judicial requests for data even when it is saved outside the United States.

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Area 2713 clearly compels communications and computing provider to maintain and divulge subscriber data within their "possession, custody, or control, regardless of whether it is located within or outside the United States" validating the point above. (Click an image to view it complete size.) This dependence also converges with the context of cross-border intelligence gathering under structures such as FISA Section 702, as provided by U.S

At the exact same time, specialists called by "Arabi Post" alert of the risks of focusing contracts with American cloud provider, and of the impact of "foreign jurisdiction" on privacy and security. Between concerns over sovereignty and the market's requirement for ready-made infrastructure, the value of information localization policies and the limits of cross-border information flows is growing, as gone over in global reports such as those by the OECD.

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people or locals who interact with people or organizations in those nations where information centers run by American business keep the information of those countries and their people. To comprehend the scope of this threat, it is needed to first 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 gain access to data stored in data centersthe massive infrastructure used by companies to shop and procedure informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities may be required to notify the government of the country concerned that there is a legal basis compelling access to that data.

The U.S. government could likewise penalize or target any U.S. person who participates in monetary transactions with that country or sends out money transfers to individuals there. Abu Al-Saad also says that if a dispute were to take place between that country and Washington, the United States could suspend its information storage services for that nation and validate doing so.

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This would affect all sectors, consisting of financial and banking services. In the context of the security risks linked to nations' dependence on American data centers, another point likewise emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad considers the most essential and most dangerous: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool referred to as "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security companies. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the capability to oblige major innovation companies to turn over sensitive data connected to citizens or countries. Washington could, for example, force Amazon to open information records coming from users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or elsewhere, while "enforcing a rigorous nondisclosure order that prevents the innovation company from notifying the Bahraini federal government or the targeted individuals that this access has taken location.