A total internet blackout occurs in Iran by December 31, 2026.

Question

Six frontier AI models put this at 7% by 31 Dec 2026. The market says 28%. Full reasoning from every model.

WillHappen.ai · Accepted Answer

7% — the median of 6 frontier models, resolving by 2026-12-31.

Answer

Gemini (Google): 4% — Meeting a strict sub-1% traffic floor across six consecutive hours requires near-total grid failure or unprecedented state shutdown. Even during peak 2019 and 2022 crackdowns, National Information Network domestic routing kept baseline traffic above 1% of peak. A two-month window leaves very little time for an acute crisis to escalate to the point of deliberate total disconnectivity. Targeted military strikes knocking out central telecommunications landing hubs in Tehran would rapidly push odds higher.

Answer

Claude (Anthropic): 30% — Hinges on whether Iran-Israel tensions or domestic unrest trigger another deliberate near-total shutdown before year-end 2026. Iran imposed nationwide blackouts during 2019 and 2022 protests and briefly during the June 2025 Israel conflict, showing clear precedent within ~2 years. Government retains full technical capability via National Information Network and has used it repeatedly when facing unrest or conflict escalation. Main uncertainty is whether a new unrest wave, war escalation, or protest crackdown occurs in the next ~2 months to trigger it again.

Answer

GPT (OpenAI): 7% — It turns on whether Tehran chooses an extreme nationwide shutdown during a roughly two-month window. Iran has imposed severe national outages before, notably November 2019, but they are rare rather than routine events. Authorities could order it quickly, but protests, war escalation, or a perceived regime threat would likely need to clear that threshold. Cloudflare's 1%-for-six-hours rule is stricter than ordinary filtering or regional outages; major unrest before Dec. 31 would raise the odds.

Answer

Grok (xAI): 9% — Whether Tehran orders a nationwide cut amid acute unrest or war in the next 65 days. Only 2019 produced a multi-day near-zero Cloudflare drop; later protests used throttling, not 1% for 6 h. No current nationwide crisis is visible, so the 3–5-year event rate implies ~4–6% in this window. A sudden Israel strike or mass protest wave after 27 Oct would be the main updater.

Answer

DeepSeek (DeepSeek): 7% — Iran has never gone fully dark; even 2019 and 2022 shutdowns kept ~5-10% flowing, so this needs a new escalation. Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace and IRGC would have to order a full kill-switch, which they have avoided even during the 2019 Aban protests and 2022 Mahsa Amini… Cloudflare's 1%-of-4-week-max threshold is far below observed shutdown floors; past national disruptions bottomed near 5-15%, leaving residual domestic and some… The main trigger would be a regime-threatening crisis (war with Israel/US, mass uprising) before Dec 31, 2026; absent that, the base rate for a true 6-hour total…

Answer

Qwen (Alibaba): 6% — Iran's NIN architecture and the ≤1% threshold make even deliberate shutdowns rarely qualify as 'total' by this metric. Iran's 2019 shutdown is the closest precedent, but Cloudflare data showed residual traffic above 1% during most of it. The National Information Network allows domestic traffic to continue during international cuts, making ≤1% of total bytes extremely hard to hit. A triggering event (mass protests or military escalation) would need to occur AND the government would need to choose full disconnection over throttling within 65 days.

A total internet blackout occurs in Iran by December 31, 2026.

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