Major data center company pauses investment decisions in Middle East amid Iran war, CEO tells CNBC

a major data center company has paused all investment decisions in the middle east because of the iran war, ceo gary wojtaszek told cnbc. "no one wants to develop new data centers and put new gpus in until things get settled," he said. "no one's going to run into a burning building." an oaktree-owned pure dc facility in abu dhabi was hit by shrapnel from an iranian attack. in march, aws sites in the uae and bahrain were hit by iranian drones, causing outages in banking, payments, and enterprise services. oil prices have skyrocketed and supply chains are heavily disrupted. shortages are predicted for key materials needed for ai infrastructure. pure dc still sees long-term opportunity in the region and has continued planning discussions. it operates in the uae and plans to expand in riyadh. wojtaszek said workers who choose to stay on-site get "additional comfort," including location flexibility for non-essential staff who can leave the country and work remotely. the company is now focusing on remote facility operations.