Iran's parliament speaker tells Gulf states: no money, land or power for AI companies that help attack Iran

Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote on X on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, that "the Persian Gulf Data Authority is coming," and told governments, funds and firms in the region to give "no finance, equity, land and energy" to any AI or data company "aiding invasions or killing children."

The Gulf's AI pitch is simple: sovereign money, cheap land, cheap power. Ghalibaf's post goes after all of it — finance, equity, land and energy — in one line. It's a post, not a law, and nobody yet knows what a "Data Authority" would actually do or how it would reach a data center in Abu Dhabi. But Iran has already turned Hormuz into something it claims the right to police, and its drones hit cloud data centers in March. For anyone financing a gigawatt campus in the region, political risk just got its own line on the term sheet.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran's parliament, posted on X on Oct. 18, 2026, at 16:55 UTC: "The Persian Gulf Data Authority is coming. To governments, funds, and firms in the region: you are kindly advised to give no resources to any AI or data company aiding invasions or killing children. No finance, equity, land and energy. Assist them and face our enforcement." That is the full text of the post. He did not name any company.

Ghalibaf did not explain how the proposed authority would operate, what powers it would have, or how Iran could enforce restrictions on companies operating elsewhere in the region, Iran International reported. The post is a warning, not a statute, and it does not say the authority has been created or launched.

Press TV, the English channel of Iran's state broadcaster, said Ghalibaf suggested the planned body would be like the Persian Gulf Strait Authority that Iran set up to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after the US-Israeli strikes earlier this year. The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow waterway out of the Persian Gulf that much of the world's oil passes through. Press TV also said Iranian authorities have indicated measures could include attacks on data-transfer infrastructure in the Gulf owned or shared by major US companies. Both of those lines are Press TV's.

Mehr News Agency, an Iranian state news service, rendered the name as a "Persian Gulf Data Management Authority" and the last line as a warning of "coercive action." Those wordings are Mehr's.

Iran International reported that last week Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, warned that undersea cables, data centers and AI facilities "valued at $2 trillion" would be "within range" if war resumed, citing state media. On March 31, Iran's Revolutionary Guards published a list of 18 companies — including Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple, Oracle, Nvidia and the UAE's G42 — warning their regional operations could be targeted. In early March, Iranian drone attacks damaged Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE and Bahrain; Amazon said two UAE facilities were directly struck. Those lines are Iran International's.

The Gulf, and the UAE in particular, hosts some of the largest planned AI data-center campuses outside the US. Bad Signal previously reported that the UAE revised its 5-gigawatt AI campus after Iranian attacks, per Reuters. A gigawatt is a billion watts of electrical power — enough for a city, or a giant chip campus.

The picture is a 2021 file photo of Ghalibaf at Russia's State Duma in February 2021. It is not a photograph of Sunday's post.

In plain terms, Iran's parliament speaker posted on Sunday that a "Persian Gulf Data Authority is coming" and told regional governments, funds and firms to give no money, ownership, land or power to AI or data companies he says help attack Iran, or "face our enforcement." He named no company and described no powers. Press TV compared the idea to Iran's Hormuz shipping authority and said officials have talked about hitting Gulf data-transfer infrastructure. That comparison is Press TV's.