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Orbital data centers face rising conflict risk in space, experts warn
The report cites incidents including Iranian strikes on Middle East data centers and Ukrainian attacks that destroyed facilities in Russia, underscoring how computing infrastructure is becoming a target.
Orbital data centers that expand using power and space intensive infrastructure are increasingly at risk of becoming targets in conflict, Insurance Journal reports.
The outlet links the concern to militaries worldwide treating computing facilities and related capabilities as critical infrastructure, with an emphasis that attacks could include missiles, jamming, cyber operations, and directed energy weapons.
Insurance Journal also points to real-world examples where data centers were targeted, including Iranian airstrikes aimed at data centers across the Middle East, and Ukrainian attacks in recent days that destroyed several in Russia.
The report notes that while defending such space-based systems would be costly, a successful physical attack could disrupt an important orbital communication band by creating debris, and it includes commentary from Bleddyn Bowen of Durham University about the heightened payoff for attacking valuable space infrastructure.