Massive AI data centers, like Facebook's $200B Hyperion project, represent a significant national security vulnerability. Concentrating so much computational power in one physical location is akin to grouping 10 aircraft carriers, making it a high-value target that requires missile defense considerations.

The successful drone attack on Amazon data centers highlights a critical vulnerability where cheap physical weapons can disable core digital infrastructure. This scenario, blurring the line between physical and cyber warfare, is not in most corporate threat models.

The global economy relies on a network of undersea cables transmitting trillions of dollars in transactions daily. Many of these cables are exposed and physically vulnerable to sabotage, representing a critical, often overlooked, national security threat with massive economic implications.

Drone strikes on Amazon data centers during the Iran conflict suggest that critical AI and cloud infrastructure are now viewed as high-value military targets. This parallels how oil fields and refineries were targeted in previous eras of warfare.

While the West obsesses over algorithmic superiority, the true AI battlefield is physical infrastructure. China's dominance in manufacturing data center components and its potential to compromise the power grid represent a more fundamental strategic threat than model capabilities.

In active war, physical attacks on infrastructure like data centers create more tangible chaos and disruption than most cyber operations. Cyber is better suited for pre-conflict intelligence gathering and creating confusion, not outright destruction.

Modern asymmetric warfare is less about ground skirmishes and more about economic attrition through missile technology. Adversaries use extremely cheap drones and mines to exhaust the multi-million-dollar missile defense systems of better-equipped powers, creating a lopsided cost exchange.

The abstract race for AI superiority is now grounded in physical reality. Control over electricity grids, cooling, and land for data centers has become as strategically important as semiconductor supply chains, shaping who can scale frontier AI.

Just like global shipping, the internet's physical infrastructure is concentrated in geographic chokepoints. The Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz are critical corridors for data traffic between Asia and Europe, making them highly vulnerable to disruption by malicious actors.