Amazon Data Centers in Middle East Damaged After Drone Attacks

Amazon reported on Monday that several of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain suffered damage from drone attacks amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, leading to service disruptions and a prolonged recovery period.

The strikes followed a barrage of drones and missiles fired by Iran in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli operations that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.

This incident marks the first time a major U.S. tech company’s data center has been directly affected by military action, highlighting the potential risks as Big Tech expands in the region.

According to Amazon Web Services (AWS), “In the UAE, two facilities were directly struck, while in Bahrain, a drone strike near one of our sites caused physical damage to infrastructure.” The company added that the attacks disrupted power systems and, in some cases, triggered fire suppression measures that caused additional water damage.

AWS stated that it is working to restore full service but warned that recovery may take time due to the severity of the physical damage. Earlier, the company reported that “objects” caused a fire on Sunday at a UAE facility, forcing authorities to cut power to a cluster of data centers, with service restoration expected to take at least a day.

The outage has affected businesses reliant on AWS, including financial institutions, according to an anonymous source speaking to Reuters. AWS advised customers to back up critical data and consider shifting operations to unaffected regions.

U.S. tech companies have been positioning the UAE as a hub for artificial intelligence computing to support services like ChatGPT. Microsoft announced plans in November to invest $15 billion in the UAE by 2029, leveraging Nvidia chips for its local data centers.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that in prior conflicts, regional adversaries targeted oil pipelines and refineries. In the current tech era, attacks could extend to data centers, energy infrastructure supporting computing, and key fiber networks.

Other major tech firms, including Microsoft, Google, and Oracle, which operate in the UAE, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The AWS disruption impacted at least a dozen core cloud services, and institutions such as Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank reported temporary outages in their platforms and mobile apps, though they did not directly attribute the issues to AWS.