Why data centres became a target in the Iran war

Why data centres became a target in the Iran war

From The Times Tech Podcast by The Sunday Times

April 9, 2026 · 41 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of data centres in the context of the Iran war and their role in global infrastructure and energy security.

Iran has been bombing US owned data centres in the Persian Gulf, damaging physical infrastructure and disrupting cloud services across the region. Meanwhile in the UK, the combined value of new data centres approved last year officially overtook office buildings. Katie Prescott and The Times's technology correspondent Mark Sellman look at how this critical infrastructure is reshaping energy, infrastructure and conflict around the world. They also hear from Lei Zhang, CEO of Envision, a Shanghai based green tech company who talks about energy security, trade wars and robot cities. Producer: Marnie Duke Executive Producer: Priyanka Deladia Image: Getty Images Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People in this episode

Host: Katie Prescott

Guest: Lei Zhang

Topics covered

  • data centres
  • Iran war
  • cloud services
  • energy security
  • infrastructure
  • conflict
  • green tech

Keywords

  • data centres
  • Iran
  • cloud services
  • energy security
  • infrastructure
  • conflict
  • green technology

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Envision

Places: Iran, Persian Gulf, UK, Shanghai

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