AI infrastructure in geopolitical crossfire: How digital colonialism and tech monopolies escalate regional conflicts in ASEAN

Indigenous communities in ASEAN and the Middle East have long viewed digital infrastructure as an extension of colonial land grabs, where foreign-owned data centers displace local ecosystems and knowledge systems. The destruction of AWS facilities in the UAE and Bahrain could be framed as a violent assertion of territorial integrity against digital occupation, akin to historical struggles over physical land. However, mainstream narratives reduce these dynamics to 'collateral damage' rather than acts of resistance against structural domination.

The current conflict echoes Cold War-era proxy wars where US tech infrastructure was weaponized, such as the 1982 Soviet gas pipeline sabotage by the CIA, which disrupted European energy and computing networks. Post-2003, US sanctions on Iran forced the development of indigenous tech capacities (e.g., Iran’s 'National Information Network'), which the US now targets as 'legitimate' due to their ties to military or state actors. ASEAN’s reliance on US cloud services mirrors the 1997 Asian financial crisis, where foreign capital flows exacerbated regional vulnerabilities.

In Buddhist traditions, the concept of 'dependent origination' (pratītyasamutpāda) could explain how AI infrastructure dependencies create cascading vulnerabilities across regions, while Islamic finance principles (e.g., avoidance of riba) critique the exploitative pricing models of Western cloud services. Latin American dependency theorists like Raúl Prebisch argued that peripheral economies are structurally disadvantaged in global tech hierarchies, a dynamic now playing out in ASEAN’s digital economy. African digital sovereignty movements, such as Ethiopia’s 'Ethiopia AI' initiative, offer alternative models of localized AI infrastructure development.

Peer-reviewed research on cyber-physical warfare (e.g., work by the RAND Corporation) confirms that attacks on critical digital infrastructure can trigger systemic cascades in supply chains, financial systems, and governance networks. Studies on sanctions regimes (e.g., Peterson Institute for International Economics) show that secondary sanctions targeting tech firms often backfire, strengthening adversarial innovation (e.g., Iran’s semiconductor self-sufficiency). The ecological footprint of data centers—responsible for ~1% of global electricity use—is rarely factored into geopolitical risk assessments, despite growing evidence of their climate impact.

Artists like Lawrence Abu Hamdan have documented how digital surveillance and infrastructure sabotage are experienced as forms of 'sonic violence' in conflict zones, where the hum of data centers becomes a symbol of occupation. In Southeast Asia, shadow puppet traditions (e.g., Wayang Kulit) are being reimagined to critique tech colonialism, with data centers depicted as 'digital giants' devouring local knowledge. Spiritual leaders in ASEAN have framed the Iran-Israel conflict as a 'war of algorithms,' where AI-driven disinformation and cyberattacks erode collective memory and cultural identity.

Scenario modeling by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab suggests that future conflicts will increasingly target AI infrastructure as a 'soft power' weapon, with ASEAN nations caught in the crossfire due to their reliance on foreign cloud providers. Projections by the International Energy Agency warn that data center growth in Southeast Asia could triple by 2035, exacerbating energy poverty and climate vulnerability. Alternative futures include 'digital non-alignment' movements, where ASEAN nations develop sovereign cloud networks, or 'AI peacekeeping' initiatives to demilitarize tech infrastructure.

ASEAN civil society groups, such as the Digital Freedom Alliance in the Philippines, have documented how US tech monopolies exacerbate authoritarianism by providing surveillance tools to governments while claiming neutrality. Indigenous activists in Sarawak, Malaysia, have resisted data center construction on sacred lands, framing it as a violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Palestinian tech workers in Gaza, despite being targeted by Israeli strikes, have pioneered open-source AI tools for conflict zones, offering a counter-narrative to Western tech dominance.