Ars Live will examine drone threats to data centers on November 17

On Tuesday, November 17, 2026, at 1 pm Eastern Time, Ars Live will stream a discussion on YouTube about drone attacks on data centers. Ars Technica reporter Jeremy Hsu will host RUSI researcher Joseph Jarnecki. Watch through the official livestream below; the conversation will examine physical defenses, cloud resilience and deployment choices.

The attacks behind the conversation

The event follows attacks that have exposed the physical vulnerability of cloud infrastructure. In its November 12 announcement, Ars says drone and missile strikes in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have disrupted cloud services for millions of people this year. Some Amazon Web Services customer data was permanently lost.

Hsu’s earlier coverage, cited in the announcement, examined Iranian strikes that left Amazon facing months of repairs. It also traced Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centers and Ukrainian counterstrikes that damaged Russian government facilities and AI data centers owned by Yandex. Those incidents provide the background for the discussion, rather than findings newly produced by the upcoming event.

A researcher focused on keeping the cloud running

Jarnecki is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a UK defense and security think tank. He leads its work on the role of cloud services in national security and defense, alongside technology sovereignty efforts.

His research includes how Ukraine worked with Western partners to strengthen cloud resilience while facing cyberattacks and physical attacks at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. He has also examined what that experience means for NATO and European governments adopting cloud services.

This year, Jarnecki has discussed Iranian drone and missile attacks on Amazon data centers in the Middle East during the US-Israeli war with Iran. He has also weighed in on attacks by Russia and Ukraine against each other’s data centers. His work spans government cloud policy and the effects of recent conflicts.

From defending buildings to choosing where to deploy

The announced agenda moves from the reasons for the attacks to possible responses. Hsu and Jarnecki will explore why data centers have become more prominent military targets, then consider whether defending or hardening them against drones and missiles is realistic. Hardening here means improving a facility’s physical protection against attack.

The conversation will also address improving cloud resilience in wartime: keeping services available despite attacks and damage. Its scope extends beyond protecting an individual building to the choices governments and cloud providers face when deploying data centers amid growing geopolitical risks.

Those are questions on the program, not conclusions announced in advance. The practical issue to listen for is how the discussion connects protection at a particular site with continued access to cloud services. The announced agenda covers both, leaving the relative value and feasibility of those responses for the conversation itself.