That’s not why these datacenters are here. The various big cloud providers (AWS/Oracle/Microsoft/Google) are perfectly able to build datacenters in the US and they do! However with the downfall of US Hegemony and the distrust that has been growing and finally come to a head with the current administration, non-US industries have been demanding “sovereign” clouds where their customer data and compute etc, doesn’t live in the US and so is more resistant to US warrants and sanctions. The cloud providers want these large, rich customers (petro states), and are more then happy to build datacenters outside of US Jurisdiction. The money still flows back to the US shareholders so they don’t give a shit where the physical assets are actually located.
That said Iran blowing these things up is one of the most meaningful things it can do to resist the US and eventually force a retreat.
That’s absolutely why they are there. The US grid has very limited capacity, and expanding it will be a decades long project. It simply cannot support a significant data center build out in its current state. Yes, they do build data centers in the US, but there is a hard limit on the available energy production.
Putting data centers in these vassals states basically ties them deeper into US economy, and ensures their oil goes towards powering American data processing infrastructure. There’s a great discussion with Michael Hudson on the subject incidentally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHvpgCaCkSs
That’s not why these datacenters are here. The various big cloud providers (AWS/Oracle/Microsoft/Google) are perfectly able to build datacenters in the US and they do! However with the downfall of US Hegemony and the distrust that has been growing and finally come to a head with the current administration, non-US industries have been demanding “sovereign” clouds where their customer data and compute etc, doesn’t live in the US and so is more resistant to US warrants and sanctions. The cloud providers want these large, rich customers (petro states), and are more then happy to build datacenters outside of US Jurisdiction. The money still flows back to the US shareholders so they don’t give a shit where the physical assets are actually located.
That said Iran blowing these things up is one of the most meaningful things it can do to resist the US and eventually force a retreat.
That’s absolutely why they are there. The US grid has very limited capacity, and expanding it will be a decades long project. It simply cannot support a significant data center build out in its current state. Yes, they do build data centers in the US, but there is a hard limit on the available energy production.
Putting data centers in these vassals states basically ties them deeper into US economy, and ensures their oil goes towards powering American data processing infrastructure. There’s a great discussion with Michael Hudson on the subject incidentally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHvpgCaCkSs