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Data obtained and examined by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and areas (data centers) in the Middle East and North Africa exposed that the area's countries rely heavily on American companies for cloud services. The data shows the presence of around 31 American centers, many of them in Gulf nations, while the number of centers owned by Chinese companies 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 actually moved from a "technical choice" for minimizing server expenses into important facilities for the state and the economy: e-government websites, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of huge information, synthetic intelligence, and more. However the current Iran war (2026) exposed a new measurement: the cloud itself can be straight and physically targeted, as taken place when Iranian drone strikes harmed Amazon AWS cloud service data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, causing disturbances and service outages.

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But the significance of American and foreign business does not stop at technical competitors or service quality; it reaches digital sovereignty and questions of control over information for these nations and their different sensitive sectors. American companies are subject to U.S. laws regulating lawful access to information, such as the CLOUD Act, raising questions about the limitations of judicial ask for data even when it is saved outside the United States.

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Area 2713 clearly forces interactions and computing service providers to maintain and reveal customer data within their "possession, custody, or control, regardless of whether it is located 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.

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people or citizens who engage with individuals or organizations in those nations where data centers run by American business store the information of those nations and their residents. To comprehend the scope of this danger, it is needed 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 information saved in data centersthe large-scale infrastructure used by business to store and process informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities might be required to alert the government of the country concerned that there is a legal basis compelling access to that data.

The U.S. government could also penalize or target any U.S. person who engages in financial deals with that country or sends money transfers to individuals there. Abu Al-Saad likewise says that if a disagreement were to happen in between that country and Washington, the United States might 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 dangers connected to countries' reliance on American data centers, another point likewise emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad thinks about the most essential and most harmful: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool known as "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security companies. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the ability to compel major technology companies to hand over delicate data related to residents or countries. Washington could, for example, force Amazon to open data records coming from users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or in other places, while "enforcing a stringent nondisclosure order that avoids the innovation business from notifying the Bahraini government or the targeted individuals that this gain access to has occurred.