Data centres are now being targeted in wars, and a United Nations adviser says Europe should slow down its plans to build AI infrastructure. He made the comments in an interview with Euronews Next.
Mehdi Paryavi is the founder of the International Data Center Authority, a think tank. He said drone strikes in Ukraine should push Europe to rethink where it builds these facilities.
Data centres in Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East have become key targets in recent conflicts. Attacks on them can temporarily disrupt a country’s economy and services such as banks and hospitals.
Strikes on Both Sides
Russia has struck data centres in Kyiv. In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have hit several data centres in Russia.
Kyiv has said its attacks were aimed at sites that provide revenue for Moscow’s war effort. Euronews also reported a fire at a Yandex data centre after a Ukrainian drone attack.
“When you hit enough important targets, you can take down the entire economy,” Paryavi said. He added that as societies go digital, hitting a data centre can mean “paralysing the functions of military, healthcare and finance.”
Data centres are buildings that house a company’s servers and data. They are also key to artificial intelligence, which depends on huge amounts of energy.
Their role in war has grown as Ukraine uses AI for drone targeting and other military tasks.
Paryavi said the old industry advice to pick sites carefully and keep locations secret may no longer be enough. “Maybe you need iron domes, maybe you need to build them underground, or you need to build bunkers,” he said.
He did not give specifics, citing national security. But he said “the days that you would just build data centres in random locations are over.”
He also admitted that no country has a clear plan to do this without slowing the race to build AI capacity.
Europe’s AI Gigafactory Plans
Asked whether the strikes would make European governments rethink their plans for AI gigafactories, Paryavi said: “100%.” AI gigafactories are a type of large data centre.
Paryavi said the cost of damage can be huge and “almost irreversible” for many countries, including in Europe. Data centres can cost up to $25 billion each and take up to three years to build.
“Europe cannot afford to finance hundreds of billions of dollars of assets and then somebody takes them out,” he said. “I project that the whole thing has to slow down.”
He urged European states to act together, saying no single country could handle it alone. He pointed to global energy shortages and a lack of trained workers as added challenges.
Instead of spreading data centres out, he suggested grouping them in concentrated areas. That way, he said, an iron dome style defence could protect them.
A European Commission spokesperson told Euronews Next it has launched a tender to set up as many as seven AI gigafactories across Europe. The spokesperson did not say whether attacks on data centres would change those plans.
“The call is still open. Once closed, the proposals will be evaluated and then the award decisions will be taken,” the Commission said. The call closes on November 12.
