That is a strategy people try but it's usually weak. The Chinese have stolen TB from clients and servers across industries. One still has to protect the server from attacks from the client, other servers, or networks. Whole problem remains.
The main benefit of that architecture is to protect against non-technical insiders and others who have less opportunity for physical attack. The compute nodes are stored in a hopefully-secure location with files similarly centralized. Additionally, if the mechanisms are technology agnostic, there's potential for further hardening, monitoring, obfuscation, recovery, etc.
Doesn't eliminate a Chinese-style threat, though, if it's connected to a network in any way and doesn't use high assurance components.
The main benefit of that architecture is to protect against non-technical insiders and others who have less opportunity for physical attack. The compute nodes are stored in a hopefully-secure location with files similarly centralized. Additionally, if the mechanisms are technology agnostic, there's potential for further hardening, monitoring, obfuscation, recovery, etc.
Doesn't eliminate a Chinese-style threat, though, if it's connected to a network in any way and doesn't use high assurance components.