Amazon was contacted for comment on the latest Bahrain drone incident, but said it had nothing to add beyond the statement in its current advisory. Denial of infrastructure Doing the damage is the Shaheed 136, a small and unsophisticated drone designed to overwhelm defenders with numbers. If only one in twenty reaches its target, the price-performance still exceeds that of more expensive systems. When aimed at critical infrastructure such as datacenters, the effect is also psychological; the threat of an attack on its own can be enough to make it difficult for organizations to continue using an at-risk facility.  Iran’s targeting of the Bahrain datacenter is unlikely to be random. Amazon opened its ME-SOUTH-1 AWS presence in 2019, and it is still believed to be the company’s largest site in the Middle East. Earlier this week, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Telegram channel explicitly threatened to target at least 18 US companies operating in the region, including Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and Apple. This follows similar threats to an even longer list of US companies made on the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency in recent weeks. That strategy doesn’t bode well for US companies that have made large investments in Middle Eastern datacenter infrastructure in recent years, drawn by the growing wealth and influence of countries in the region. This includes Amazon, which has announced plans to build a $5.3 billion datacenter in Saudi Arabia, due to become available in 2026. If this is now under threat, whether by warfare or the hypothetical possibility of attack, that will create uncertainty.

Each month Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Pkaza, posts some of the hottest data center career opportunities in the market. Here’s a look at some of the latest data center jobs posted on the Data Center Frontier jobs board, powered by Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting. Looking for Data Center Candidates? Check out Pkaza’s Active Candidate / Featured Candidate Hotlist Power Applications Engineer Pittsburgh, PA This position is also available in: Denver, CO and Andrews, SC.  Our client is a leading provider and manufacturer of industrial electrical power equipment used in industrial applications for mission critical operations. They help their customers save money by reducing energy and operating costs and provide solutions for modernizing their customer’s existing electrical infrastructure. This company provides cooling solutions to many of the world’s largest organizations and government facilities and enterprise clients, colocation providers and hyperscale companies. This career-growth minded opportunity offers exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive salaries and benefits. Electrical Commissioning Engineer Ashburn, VA This traveling position is also available in: New York, NY; White Plains, NY;  Dallas, TX; Richmond, VA; Montvale, NJ; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Hampton, GA; New Albany, OH; Cedar Rapids, IA; Phoenix, AZ; Salt Lake City, UT;  Kansas City, MO; Omaha, NE; Chesterton, IN or Chicago, IL. *** ALSO looking for a LEAD EE and ME CxA Agents and CxA PMs. ***  Our client is an engineering design and commissioning company that has a national footprint and specializes in MEP critical facilities design. They provide design, commissioning, consulting and management expertise in the critical facilities space. They have a mindset to provide reliability, energy efficiency, sustainable design and LEED expertise when providing these consulting services for enterprise, colocation and hyperscale companies. This career-growth minded opportunity offers exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive

The researchers also made use of a database provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the authors pointed out contains more than 11,000 locations worldwide, of which 8,472 have been detected to dwell outside of highly dense urban areas. The latter locations were then used to “quantify the effect of data centers on the environment in terms of the LST gradient that could be measured on the areas surrounding each data center.” Asking the wrong question Asked if AI data centers are really causing local warming, or if this phenomenon is overstated, Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, said, “the signal is real, but the industry is asking the wrong question. The research shows a consistent rise in land surface temperature of around 2°C  following the establishment of large data centre facilities.” The debate, however, “has quickly shifted to causality: whether this is driven by operational heat from compute, or by land transformation during construction. That distinction matters scientifically, but it does not change the strategic implication.” Land surface temperature, said Gogia, is not the same as air temperature, and that gap will be used to challenge the findings. “But dismissing the signal on that basis would be a mistake,” he noted. “Data centers concentrate energy use, replace natural surfaces with heat-retaining materials, and continuously reject heat into the environment. Those are known drivers of thermal change.” He added, “the uncomfortable truth is this: Even if the exact mechanism is debated, the outcome aligns with first principles. Infrastructure at this scale alters its surroundings. The industry does not yet have a clean way to separate construction impact from operational impact, and that ambiguity makes the risk harder to model, not easier. This is not overstated, it is under-interpreted.” Location strategy must change But will the findings change

The coming shift to higher-voltage DC That internal power challenge led Simonelli to one of the most consequential architectural topics in the interview: the likely transition toward higher-voltage DC distribution at very high rack densities. He framed it pragmatically. At current density levels, the industry knows how to get power into racks at 200 or 300 kilowatts. But as densities rise toward 400 kilowatts and beyond, conventional AC approaches start to run into physical limits. Too much cable, too much copper, too much conversion equipment, and too much space consumed by power infrastructure rather than GPUs. At that point, he said, higher-voltage DC becomes attractive not for philosophical reasons, but because it reduces current, shrinks conductor size, saves space, and leaves more room for revenue-generating compute. “It is again a paradigm shift,” Simonelli said of DC power at these densities. “But it won’t be everywhere.” That is probably right. The transition will not be universal, and the exact thresholds will evolve. But his underlying point is powerful. As rack densities climb, electrical architecture starts to matter not only for efficiency and reliability, but for physical space allocation inside the rack. Put differently, power distribution becomes a compute-enablement issue. Distance between accelerators matters, too. The closer GPUs and TPUs can be kept together, the better they perform. If power infrastructure can be compacted, more of the rack can be devoted to dense compute, improving the economics and performance of the system. That is a strong example of how AI is collapsing traditional boundaries between facility engineering and compute architecture. The two are no longer cleanly separable. Gas now, renewables over time On onsite power, Simonelli was refreshingly direct. If the goal is dispatchable onsite generation at the scale now being contemplated for AI facilities, he said, “there really isn’t an alternative

Renewables can reduce carbon intensity, but they cannot independently meet the need for continuous, multi-gigawatt firm capacity without large-scale storage and balancing resources. For developers targeting guaranteed availability within this decade, natural gas remains the most readily deployable option, despite the political and environmental tradeoffs it introduces. AEP and the Cost Allocation Model If the generation plan explains the engineering logic, the AEP structure speaks to the political one. At the center is one of the most contested questions in the data center market: who pays for the transmission and grid upgrades required to serve large new loads? Utilities, regulators, consumer advocates, and large-load customers are increasingly divided on this issue. Data center developers point to economic development benefits, including jobs and tax revenue. Consumer advocates counter that residential ratepayers should not subsidize infrastructure built primarily to serve hyperscale demand. The Ohio arrangement is being positioned as a response to that conflict. DOE states that SB Energy and AEP Ohio are partnering on $4.2 billion in new transmission infrastructure, with SB Energy committing to fund those investments rather than passing costs through to ratepayers. AEP has echoed that position, indicating the structure is intended to avoid upward pressure on transmission rates for Ohio customers. Whether that outcome holds will depend on regulatory review and execution. But the structure itself is significant. It frames a model in which large-load developers directly fund the transmission infrastructure required to support their projects, rather than relying on broader cost recovery mechanisms. That makes the project more than a construction milestone. It positions it as a potential policy template. If validated, this approach could influence how utilities and regulators across the U.S. address cost allocation for AI-scale infrastructure, particularly as similar disputes intensify in constrained grid regions. Why 765-kV Transmission Signals Scale AEP says the

Matt Vincent is Editor in Chief of Data Center Frontier, where he leads editorial strategy and coverage focused on the infrastructure powering cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy. A veteran B2B technology journalist with more than two decades of experience, Vincent specializes in the intersection of data centers, power, cooling, and emerging AI-era infrastructure. Since assuming the EIC role in 2023, he has helped guide Data Center Frontier’s coverage of the industry’s transition into the gigawatt-scale AI era, with a focus on hyperscale development, behind-the-meter power strategies, liquid cooling architectures, and the evolving energy demands of high-density compute, while working closely with the Digital Infrastructure Group at Endeavor Business Media to expand the brand’s analytical and multimedia footprint. Vincent also hosts The Data Center Frontier Show podcast, where he interviews industry leaders across hyperscale, colocation, utilities, and the data center supply chain to examine the technologies and business models reshaping digital infrastructure. Since its inception he serves as Head of Content for the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit. Before becoming Editor in Chief, he served in multiple senior editorial roles across Endeavor Business Media’s digital infrastructure portfolio, with coverage spanning data centers and hyperscale infrastructure, structured cabling and networking, telecom and datacom, IP physical security, and wireless and Pro AV markets. He began his career in 2005 within PennWell’s Advanced Technology Division and later held senior editorial positions supporting brands such as Cabling Installation & Maintenance, Lightwave Online, Broadband Technology Report, and Smart Buildings Technology. Vincent is a frequent moderator, interviewer, and keynote speaker at industry events including the HPC Forum, where he delivers forward-looking analysis on how AI and high-performance computing are reshaping digital infrastructure. He graduated with honors from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing and lives in southern New Hampshire with