Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has threatened to launch attacks against major United States technology companies operating in the Middle East, warning firms including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Google they could be treated as “legitimate targets” from 1 April.
The warning, issued via an IRGC-affiliated Telegram channel on Tuesday, marks a significant escalation in the widening conflict involving Iran, the U.S. and Israel, extending potential retaliation beyond military assets to commercial infrastructure.
The statement said attacks would begin at 8 pm Tehran time and urged employees of the named companies to evacuate workplaces to “preserve their lives”.
In its post, the IRGC accused 18 companies of enabling U.S. and Israeli military operations, including surveillance and targeting systems linked to the killing of Iranian officials.
“From now on, for every assassination, an American company will be destroyed,” the group said, according to a translation of the statement published by CNBC.
The list also included Cisco, HP, Intel, Oracle, IBM, Dell, Palantir, JPMorgan, Tesla, General Electric, Boeing and UAE-based artificial intelligence firm G42.
The threat follows a series of confirmed attacks on commercial digital infrastructure.
Iranian drones struck Amazon Web Services data centres in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on March 1, disrupting banking platforms, payment processors and consumer applications across the region, according to reporting by Kurdistan24.
The incidents marked the first publicly known strikes on hyperscale cloud infrastructure owned by U.S. companies.
Regional tensions have intensified since the start of hostilities on 28 February, when U.S. and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran.
Iranian officials have since accused Western governments and private-sector technology providers of facilitating intelligence gathering and targeting operations.
The IRGC claims such companies are “a main element in designing and tracking assassination targets”, an allegation not independently verified.
Corporate responses have focused on staff safety and operational continuity.
An Intel spokesperson said the company was “taking steps to safeguard and support our workers and facilities in the Middle East and are actively monitoring the situation”, in comments reported by CNBC.
Security analysts say the threats reflect a broader shift in how state actors view commercial technology infrastructure in conflict zones.
James Henderson, CEO of risk management firm Healix, told CNBC that “tech assets are now treated as part of the conflict, not peripheral to it”, warning that future crises could increasingly target data centres and cloud platforms alongside traditional military sites.
The Middle East has become a critical hub for U.S. technology investment, particularly in artificial intelligence and cloud computing, with billions of dollars committed to data centres and regional headquarters.
That concentration of assets, combined with their integration into defence and intelligence ecosystems, has increased their exposure to geopolitical risk.
The Pentagon has continued operations against Iranian military capabilities, including drone networks used in earlier strikes, while signalling openness to diplomatic negotiations.
According to reporting by Associated Press, U.S. officials are also considering additional troop deployments to the region as part of contingency planning.
