Tech giant, Amazon confirmed late Monday night, February 2, that two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates were directly struck by drones, causing disruptions to cloud services across parts of the Middle East.
The company also disclosed that a facility in Bahrain sustained damage after a drone strike occurred nearby, according to an update posted on its service dashboard.
Several Gulf cities have faced spillover effects from the escalating conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran, with strikes and stray projectiles reportedly impacting civilian infrastructure following coordinated attacks on Iran that led to the death of the country’s supreme leader and other senior officials.
In its statement, Amazon said the affected regions experienced physical damage due to drone activity linked to the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East. The strikes reportedly caused structural destruction, interrupted power supply to key systems and, in some instances, triggered fire suppression measures that led to additional water damage within the facilities.
The company did not indicate whether any staff members were harmed but noted that it is working closely with local authorities while prioritising employee safety during recovery operations.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud computing provider, delivers digital infrastructure supporting major apps, websites and artificial intelligence systems. It competes globally with platforms such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Amazon has advised customers in affected regions to back up critical data and, where possible, transition workloads to servers located in other parts of the world to minimize service interruptions.
On Sunday, the company had initially reported that one of its UAE facilities was struck by unspecified “objects,” cautioning users about potential operational instability.
