Amazon cloud unit’s data centres in UAE, Bahrain damaged in drone strikes

MANAMA: Amazon said on Monday some of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were damaged by drone strikes in the Middle East conflict, disrupting cloud services and making a recovery “prolonged”.

Iran fired a barrage of drones and missiles at Gulf States in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.

A strike on the UAE facility marks the first time a major US tech company’s data center has been disrupted by military action. It raises questions around Big Tech’s pace of expansion in the region.

“In the UAE, two of our facilities were directly struck, while in Bahrain, a drone strike in close proximity to one of our facilities caused physical impact to our infrastructure,” Amazon’s cloud unit Amazon Web Services (AWS) said in an update on its status page.