Iran threatens destruction of Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi
Iran's Revolutionary Guards released a video on 3 April 2026 threatening to destroy the Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi, a $30 billion computing facility operated by OpenAI and partners, in response to potential US strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. The threat followed earlier confirmed drone attacks by Iran on AWS and Oracle data centers in the Gulf region.
What happened
On 3 April 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (CGRI) released a video in which spokesperson Brigadier General Ebrahim Zolfaghari promised 'total and absolute annihilation' of American technological installations in the Gulf if the United States attacked Iranian power plants.
The video showed a satellite view of the Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi, which is obscured on Google Maps in standard view but revealed in night vision, with a caption stating 'Nothing escapes our sight, even what Google hides.' The data center, valued at $30 billion and announced in May 2025, houses a 1 GW AI computing cluster with partners including OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco and the Emirati group G42.
Reported impact
The CGRI stated that all power plants, energy infrastructure and ICT companies in the region with American shareholders would face 'complete and total annihilation' if the United States attacked Iranian energy infrastructure.
Index analysis
On 1 March 2026, Shahed drones struck two AWS data centers in the United Arab Emirates and damaged a third in Bahrain, causing two of three availability zones in Amazon's ME-CENTRAL-1 region to go offline for more than 24 hours and affecting banking services, payment platforms and transportation applications across the Gulf.
On 2 April 2026, the CGRI claimed responsibility for a strike against an Oracle data center in Dubai.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.