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Enterprise & Industry updated 2 min read

AWS unable to restore Bahrain and UAE cloud services six months after drone strikes

Amazon Web Services announced it still cannot restore access to its data‑center facilities in Bahrain and one availability zone in the United Arab Emirates, more than six months after drone attacks that damaged the sites during the early days of the Iran‑Israel conflict. The company said the damage exceeded the resilience levels its infrastructure is built to handle, forcing it to keep the…

1 source

Key points

  • AWS confirmed it cannot restore access to its Bahrain data centers and one UAE availability zone after drone damage.
  • The strikes, claimed by Iran's IRGC, have halted services for customers and raised security concerns for Gulf AI infrastructure.
  • UAE's $5‑GW AI campus project, Stargate, may be redesigned with underground, blast‑resistant sites after the attacks.

Customers were urged to migrate workloads to other AWS regions, as the outage threatens services that many AI and analytics teams rely on. The attacks have intensified worries about the security of Gulf‑region data‑center projects that were expanding to meet the surge in AI compute demand. In May 2025, OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle and Cisco joined the UAE’s "Stargate" AI campus plan, a 5‑gigawatt, 10‑square‑mile complex now being reconsidered for dispersed, underground, blast‑resistant designs.

AWS said it remains committed to its Middle‑East customers and expects further updates on the UAE situation in the coming months, with a fuller outlook for Bahrain slated for early 2027.

Full story from CNBC Technology · by Annie Palmer Open source ↗

AWS says it can't restore service to Bahrain, UAE facilities 6 months after Iran strikes

CNBC Technology · 15 September 2026

Amazon Web Services said Tuesday it can't restore access to cloud-computing facilities in Bahrain and parts of the United Arab Emirates, more than six months after the sites were damaged by drone strikes in the early days of the Iran war.

The company said in an update posted to AWS' health dashboard that the damage at multiple Bahrain-based sites exceeded what its services are designed to withstand.

"After a thorough assessment, we have determined that we are unable to restore access to the resources and data hosted exclusively in this region," AWS wrote.

In a separate post, AWS said it's similarly been unable to recover resources and data stored in one of its availability zones in the UAE. It continues to work to restore two other UAE zones that were affected.

The posts mark AWS' first public update on the incidents since April. Amazon said in March that two of its data centers in the UAE had been directly struck by drones, while a facility in Bahrain was also damaged by a nearby strike. The company told customers to move their workloads to other AWS regions, and warned that instability was likely to continue in the Middle East, making operations "unpredictable."

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for the strikes and said it targeted the Bahrain facility for Amazon's support of the U.S. military.

The attacks have raised questions about the security of future data center developments in the Gulf region, which has looked to capitalize on the surge in infrastructure demand tied to the artificial intelligence boom. In May 2025, OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle and Cisco signed up to be core partners on UAE Stargate, a massive campus that was expected to have 5-gigawatt capacity and cover 10 square miles.

The UAE is now considering revising the project to disperse the facilities across the country, and implementing enhanced security measures, including building some sites underground, using blast-resistant concrete and drone and missile interceptors, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Amazon said it remains committed to supporting its customers in Bahrain and the UAE. The company said it expects to provide further updates on the situation in UAE "in the coming months," and will have more to share for users in Bahrain in early 2027.

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This text was published by CNBC Technology and written by Annie Palmer. It is reproduced here with attribution so you can read it in full; the rights remain with the publisher. Read it at the source ↗

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