Bunkers for Servers: UAE Hides 5 GW AI Data Center Underground Due to Threat of Attacks

Artificial intelligence has officially become critical military infrastructure. On September 11, 2026, it was revealed that the UAE has completely overhauled the architecture of its flagship mega-project Stargate (a 5 GW data center backed by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank).

Instead of a single campus in Abu Dhabi, computing capacities will be fragmented into a distributed network of hardened and underground bunkers. The reason is the risk of kinetic and terrorist attacks on critical facilities. This is a fundamental shift in the design of the AI industry. Access to computational algorithms is now equated with national security. For macroeconomics, this means a sharp increase in construction costs (CAPEX): the integration of physical protection systems, air defense, and camouflage will make building data centers in the Middle East and other geopolitically unstable regions astronomically expensive.

Source: UAE Government / G42 / Reuters