The US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began on February 28, 2026, feel distant from Nairobi. They are not. Oil price above $107 a barrel, fractured semiconductor supply chains and disrupted cloud infrastructure are already working their way into the cost of doing business in Kenya and the mechanism connecting them is artificial intelligence. This is the world’s first large-scale AI war, and East Africa is not a bystander.

USCentralCommandconfirmedthatadvancedAIplatforms,Palantir’sMavenandIsrael’sHabsoraand Lavender systems, processed satellite imagery, drone feeds and signals intelligence in real time. In the first 24 hours alone, they identified over 1,000 targets, supporting more than 5,500 strikes overall. What once took teams of analysts weeks now takes seconds.

Proponentscallthisenhancedsituationalawareness.Criticscallitsomethingmoredisturbing.WhenAI shortens the gap between “target identified” and “strike authorised” from days to minutes, the cost of a mistakemultipliescatastrophically.Astrikenearagirls’schoolinMinabkilleddozensofchildren.That is whatAI-accelerated warfare looks like in practice: speed that outpaces human judgment, with irreversible consequences.

In civilian life, we face a slower version of the same dilemma. Loan approvals, fraud flags, hiring decisions,AIisalreadyacceleratingthosecyclestoo.Thequestioneveryboardroomnowhastoansweris identical to the one the battlefield is wrestling with: who is accountable when the algorithm is wrong?

InearlyMarch,Iranian-linkeddronestrikeshitthreeAmazonWebServicesdatacentres:twointheUAE, oneinBahrain.Bankingappswentdark.Paymentsfailed.Ride-hailingandfooddeliverygroundtoahalt across the Gulf. Millions couldn’t complete basic transactions.

This wasn’t a cyberattack. It was a physical strike on digital infrastructure. Iran has explicitly signalled that US-linked IT and energy facilities are legitimate targets. For the UAE, which has built itsAI ambitionsonhyper-scaledatacentres,thischangesthecalculusentirely:cloudinfrastructurenowcarries kinetic risk. Multi-region redundancy and hybrid architectures, once optional, are now table stakes.

CENTCOM’sownpublicstatementsconfirmthatadversariesareactivelymappingcriticaldigital infrastructure as part of their targeting strategy.

Here’sonethatisn’tmakingenoughheadlines:helium.Notpartyballoons,theirreplaceablecoolantused in semiconductor fabrication. Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex, responsible for roughly a third of global helium production, took direct hits. Prices surged 40–100 per cent within weeks.

Combined with Brent crude above$100abarrel,drivingupthecostofpoweringenergy-hungrydatacentres,theeconomicsoftheAI boom are under genuine pressure. Chipmakers from Samsung to TSMC are already feeling the pinch.

For businesses importing tech hardware, this means squeezed margins and longer lead times. For investorspouringbillionsintoAIinfrastructure,itisareminderthatsupplychainconcentrationisa strategic liability, not an operational footnote.

Noneof thiskills theAI dream.It matures it.

TheAI information environment is fracturing in parallel.AI-generated deepfakes and fabricated battlefield footage, documented by BBC Verify, have accumulated hundreds of millions of views, outpacingfact-checkersinrealtime.Ineconomieswheredigitalplatformsunderpincommerceandpublic trust, verification is no longer a media problem. It is a business continuity problem.

Onsupplychains,thedisruptionopensarealstrategicwindow.Nationswithgrowingtechecosystems, renewable energy capacity and no legacy dependence on concentrated Gulf infrastructure are well-positionedtobecomealternativehubsinadiversifyingglobalAIsupplychain.Gulfstates,meanwhile, can accelerate regional partnerships and resilience investments rather than doubling down on exposed, centralised infrastructure.