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Information gotten and evaluated by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and areas (information centers) in the Middle East and North Africa revealed that the region's nations rely heavily on American companies for cloud services. The data shows the presence of around 31 American centers, most of them in Gulf nations, while the variety of centers owned by Chinese business reached about 7.

In the Gulf nations, more than 53% of the cloud facilities tracked there is American. Source: "Arabi Post" database of cloud service centers in the Middle East and North Africa (89 centers).

Within a couple of years, cloud service centers have shifted from a "technical option" for reducing server expenses into important infrastructure for the state and the economy: e-government websites, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of big data, artificial intelligence, and more. However the current Iran war (2026) exposed a brand-new dimension: the cloud itself can be straight and physically targeted, as occurred when Iranian drone strikes harmed Amazon AWS cloud service information centers in the UAE and Bahrain, triggering disruptions and service outages.

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However the significance of American and foreign business does not stop at technical competitors or service quality; it extends to digital sovereignty and questions of control over information for these countries and their numerous sensitive sectors. American business go through U.S. laws controling lawful access to data, such as the CLOUD Act, raising concerns about the limitations of judicial ask for data even when it is stored outside the United States.

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Section 2713 clearly compels interactions and calculating company to protect and disclose subscriber information within their "ownership, custody, or control, no matter whether it lies within or outside the United States" verifying the point above. (Click an image to view it full size.) This dependence likewise intersects with the context of cross-border intelligence gathering under frameworks such as FISA Section 702, as presented by U.S

At the very same time, experts gotten in touch with by "Arabi Post" caution of the risks of focusing agreements with American cloud company, and of the impact of "foreign jurisdiction" on privacy and security. Between concerns over sovereignty and the market's need for ready-made infrastructure, the importance of information localization policies and the limits of cross-border data streams is growing, as gone over in international reports such as those by the OECD.

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residents or homeowners who engage with people or organizations in those nations where data centers run by American companies keep the information of those nations and their people. To understand the scope of this danger, it is required to initially examine 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 stored in information centersthe large-scale facilities used by companies to shop and process informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities may be needed to inform the federal government of the country concerned that there is a legal basis compelling access to that information.

The U.S. federal government could also punish or target any U.S. resident who participates in monetary transactions with that nation or sends cash transfers to individuals there. Abu Al-Saad likewise says that if a disagreement were to happen in between that nation and Washington, the United States could 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 dangers connected to nations' reliance on American data centers, another point also emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad considers the most important and most dangerous: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool called "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security agencies. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the capability to oblige major technology business to turn over sensitive data related to residents or countries. Washington could, for instance, force Amazon to open data records coming from users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or elsewhere, while "imposing a stringent nondisclosure order that prevents the innovation business from notifying the Bahraini federal government or the targeted people that this gain access to has occurred.