Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced significant disruptions in the Middle East when its data centres in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain were struck by drone and missile attacks. These incidents, attributed to the ongoing geopolitical tensions involving Iran, resulted in structural damage, power outages, and water damage due to the activation of fire suppression systems.
The attacks specifically affected an AWS availability zone in the UAE, identified as ME-CENTRAL-1, which went offline temporarily. This marked the first instance where a major US tech company’s data centre was directly impacted by military action, highlighting a new vulnerability for tech infrastructure in geopolitically unstable regions.
As AWS works on recovery, it has warned customers that the process might be prolonged. Currently, a dozen core cloud services are disrupted, impacting financial institutions and other significant sectors throughout the region. AWS has advised its customers to migrate their workloads to regions unaffected by the incident to mitigate the impact on their operations.
The incident underscores the risks that come with Big Tech’s rapid expansion into areas grappling with geopolitical conflicts. It serves as a reminder that, alongside traditional targets like energy assets, technology infrastructures are becoming potential military targets in conflicts.
In other related tech news from the Asia-Pacific region, WiseTech Global, an Australian logistics software company, announced a workforce reduction of up to 2,000 jobs due to gains in AI-driven productivity. Meanwhile, Samsung has unveiled plans to establish fully autonomous, AI-driven factories by 2030, incorporating humanoid robots. In India, Micron is opening its first semiconductor assembly and test facility in Gujarat, and Indonesia has partnered with Arm to train 15,000 chip engineers. Additionally, Uber is launching a flying taxi service in Dubai in collaboration with Joby, showcasing the rapid advancements and diversification within the tech industry.

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AWS data centres in the UAE (ME-CENTRAL-1) and Bahrain were struck by drone and missile attacks amid regional geopolitical tensions, causing structural damage, power outages, and water damage from fire suppression systems. At least one availability zone went offline, disrupting a dozen core cloud services and affecting financial institutions across the region. AWS is advising customers to migrate workloads to unaffected regions while recovery efforts continue. The incident marks the first time a major US tech company's data centre was directly hit by military action, highlighting new vulnerabilities for cloud infrastructure in conflict zones.

AWS Data Centres in UAE and Bahrain Hit by Drone Attacks, Prompting Significant Service Disruption