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Information gotten and evaluated 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 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 business reached about 7.

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

Click any point to see information about the center, consisting of the running company, its citizenship, and the year it was introduced. Utilize the filters to focus on a specific nationality, or look for a specific center or country. 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 choice" for reducing server expenses into important facilities for the state and the economy: e-government portals, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of huge information, expert system, and more. The recent Iran war (2026) revealed a brand-new dimension: the cloud itself can be directly and physically targeted, as occurred when Iranian drone strikes harmed Amazon AWS cloud service data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, causing interruptions and service blackouts.

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But the significance of American and foreign business does not stop at technical competition or service quality; it encompasses digital sovereignty and questions of control over data for these countries and their numerous delicate sectors. American business go through U.S. laws managing legal 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 interactions and calculating service companies to maintain and reveal subscriber data within their "possession, custody, or control, despite whether it is situated within or outside the United States" verifying the point above. (Click an image to view it complete size.) This reliance also intersects with the context of cross-border intelligence event under frameworks such as FISA Section 702, as provided by U.S

At the very same time, specialists called by "Arabi Post" caution of the risks of focusing contracts with American cloud provider, and of the impact of "foreign jurisdiction" on personal privacy and security. Between concerns over sovereignty and the market's requirement for ready-made infrastructure, the significance of data localization policies and the limits of cross-border information streams is growing, as talked about in international reports such as those by the OECD.

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people or homeowners who engage with individuals or organizations in those countries where information centers run by American business keep the data of those nations and their citizens. To understand the scope of this threat, it is required 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 data stored in information centersthe large-scale infrastructure used by companies to shop and procedure informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities may be needed to alert the government of the country concerned that there is a legal basis engaging access to that information.

The U.S. federal government might also penalize or target any U.S. resident who takes part in monetary deals with that nation or sends money transfers to people there. Abu Al-Saad also says that if a dispute were to occur in between that country and Washington, the United States might suspend its information storage services for that country and justify doing so.

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This would impact all sectors, including monetary and banking services. In the context of the security threats linked to countries' dependence on American information centers, another point also emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad considers the most important and most dangerous: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool understood 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 business to turn over sensitive data related to people or countries. Washington could, for example, force Amazon to open information records belonging to users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or in other places, while "imposing a rigorous nondisclosure order that avoids the innovation company from informing the Bahraini government or the targeted individuals that this access has actually taken location.