Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Tuesday that it is unable to restore access to cloud computing facilities in Bahrain and parts of the United Arab Emirates, more than six months after these sites were damaged during drone strikes in the early stages of the Iran war. This prolonged outage raises significant questions about the resilience of critical digital infrastructure in the strategically sensitive Middle East region, especially as it seeks to become a hub for AI development.
In an update posted to AWS’s health dashboard, the company stated that the damage at multiple Bahrain-based sites exceeded the design parameters for its services. “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 communicated.
Similarly, AWS revealed in a separate post that it has been unsuccessful in recovering resources and data stored in one of its availability zones in the UAE. Efforts are ongoing to restore two other UAE zones that were impacted.
These announcements represent AWS’s first public disclosure on the incidents since April. In March, Amazon had confirmed that two of its data centers in the UAE sustained direct drone strikes, while a facility in Bahrain was also affected by a proximate attack. The company had then advised customers to migrate their workloads to alternative AWS regions, cautioning that the Middle East could experience continued instability, rendering operations unpredictable.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran claimed responsibility for the attacks, specifically targeting the Bahrain facility in retaliation for Amazon’s support of U.S. military operations.
These attacks have cast a shadow over the future security of data center developments in the Gulf. The region has been aggressively pursuing growth in digital infrastructure, largely driven by the escalating demand fueled by the artificial intelligence boom. A prominent example is the UAE Stargate project, initiated in May 2025, which aimed to establish a massive data center campus with a projected 5-gigawatt capacity spanning 10 square miles. Key technology players, including OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle, and Cisco, had committed as core partners to this ambitious initiative.
In response to these security concerns, Reuters reported that the UAE is considering a significant revision of the Stargate project. This revision may involve dispersing facilities across the country and implementing advanced security measures. These could include constructing some sites underground, employing blast-resistant concrete, and deploying drone and missile interception systems.
Despite the challenges, AWS reiterated its commitment to supporting its customers in Bahrain and the UAE. The company anticipates providing further updates on the situation in the UAE in the coming months and expects to share more information for users in Bahrain in early 2027. The prolonged outage and the subsequent security reassessments underscore the complex geopolitical and operational risks inherent in hosting critical digital infrastructure in regions susceptible to conflict. The industry will be closely watching how these developments influence future investment and security protocols for data centers in the Gulf and beyond.
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