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<p>This article argues that multinational tech firms have evolved from peripheral suppliers into “digital proxies” in modern warfare. By providing essential services like cloud infrastructure, satellite communications, cyber defence and AI analytics, these private actors now actively mediate operational continuity, battlefield awareness and the tempo of military action. Using the Russo-Ukrainian war and Israel’s Project Nimbus as key case studies, the research demonstrates how tech giants wield a new quasi-military power through infrastructural gatekeeping and software control, fulfilling roles traditionally held by states. While this corporate integration enhances military resilience and defensive capabilities, it introduces critical risks. It creates acute technological dependencies, complicates longstanding questions about the line between civilian and military targets and generates severe accountability gaps when corporate executives or platform architectures dictate battlefield decisions. Ultimately, the article calls for a new governance framework to regulate this emerging “corporate battlespace.”</p>

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Private tech giants at war: digital proxies, quasi-military power and the corporate battlespace in contemporary armed conflict

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月4日

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  • Xufeng Zhang,
  • Han Li,
  • Shenghui Bao

摘要

This article argues that multinational tech firms have evolved from peripheral suppliers into “digital proxies” in modern warfare. By providing essential services like cloud infrastructure, satellite communications, cyber defence and AI analytics, these private actors now actively mediate operational continuity, battlefield awareness and the tempo of military action. Using the Russo-Ukrainian war and Israel’s Project Nimbus as key case studies, the research demonstrates how tech giants wield a new quasi-military power through infrastructural gatekeeping and software control, fulfilling roles traditionally held by states. While this corporate integration enhances military resilience and defensive capabilities, it introduces critical risks. It creates acute technological dependencies, complicates longstanding questions about the line between civilian and military targets and generates severe accountability gaps when corporate executives or platform architectures dictate battlefield decisions. Ultimately, the article calls for a new governance framework to regulate this emerging “corporate battlespace.”