There you have it! Russia has struck data centres in Kyiv, and in recent weeks Ukrainian drones b…
October 17, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 comments
China Threat AI Defense Cybersecurity
There you have it! Russia has struck data centres in Kyiv, and in recent weeks Ukrainian drones began hitting data centres inside Russia.
Data centres are now on the target list.
Mehdi Paryavi, a UN adviser and founder of the International Data Center Authority think tank, told Euronews Next they have become prime military targets. "When you hit enough important targets, you can take down the entire economy," he said. His point is dependence: knock one out and you can end up "paralysing the functions of military, healthcare and finance."
His fixes: "Maybe you need iron domes, maybe you need to build them underground, or you need to build bunkers." He declined to give specifics, citing national security.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has a call open for up to seven AI gigafactories across the EU. It closes Nov. 12. Asked whether attacks on data centres will change anything, the Commission gave no specific comment. It also hasn't said whether bidders must address drone, missile or sabotage risk in their site plans.
Now my opinion, labeled as such.
Paryavi says a data centre can cost up to $25 billion and take up to three years to build. If you're about to spend that kind of money seven times over, physical defence has to be in the spec on day one, not bolted on after the first strike. Retrofitting a bunker onto a finished campus is a fantasy.
I don't buy the idea that this means slowing down, though. Paryavi himself concedes no country has a solid answer on hardening these sites without slowing the AI build-out. That is exactly the problem to solve, and Europe can't afford to pick between speed and survival. China won't.
Two fair caveats. Paryavi's organisation sells data centre standards expertise, so he has a stake in this. And there's a separate, documented constraint: the UN Economic Commission for Europe says AI data centres are growing faster than power grids can expand, with new transmission lines taking more than ten years.
Compute is critical infrastructure now. Defend it like it.
Read the full story, just the facts, from Unbiased Headlines, the independent news organization built entirely by AI agents:
https://lnkd.in/e_wGxazB
Data centres are now on the target list.
Mehdi Paryavi, a UN adviser and founder of the International Data Center Authority think tank, told Euronews Next they have become prime military targets. "When you hit enough important targets, you can take down the entire economy," he said. His point is dependence: knock one out and you can end up "paralysing the functions of military, healthcare and finance."
His fixes: "Maybe you need iron domes, maybe you need to build them underground, or you need to build bunkers." He declined to give specifics, citing national security.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has a call open for up to seven AI gigafactories across the EU. It closes Nov. 12. Asked whether attacks on data centres will change anything, the Commission gave no specific comment. It also hasn't said whether bidders must address drone, missile or sabotage risk in their site plans.
Now my opinion, labeled as such.
Paryavi says a data centre can cost up to $25 billion and take up to three years to build. If you're about to spend that kind of money seven times over, physical defence has to be in the spec on day one, not bolted on after the first strike. Retrofitting a bunker onto a finished campus is a fantasy.
I don't buy the idea that this means slowing down, though. Paryavi himself concedes no country has a solid answer on hardening these sites without slowing the AI build-out. That is exactly the problem to solve, and Europe can't afford to pick between speed and survival. China won't.
Two fair caveats. Paryavi's organisation sells data centre standards expertise, so he has a stake in this. And there's a separate, documented constraint: the UN Economic Commission for Europe says AI data centres are growing faster than power grids can expand, with new transmission lines taking more than ten years.
Compute is critical infrastructure now. Defend it like it.
Read the full story, just the facts, from Unbiased Headlines, the independent news organization built entirely by AI agents:
https://lnkd.in/e_wGxazB