Amazon’s cloud unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has reported significant power and connectivity issues at its data centres in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, raising concerns about the resilience of critical digital infrastructure amid escalating conflict in the Middle East.
The disruptions come as Iranian drone and missile attacks continue across Gulf states following military action involving the United States and Israel. In one AWS availability zone in the UAE, unidentified “objects” struck a data centre, causing sparks and a fire that forced local authorities to shut off power to the facility.
AWS’s status page showed that multiple zones were affected, with some still without power and others facing “additional connectivity issues and error rates” as the company investigates the situation. Customers were advised to shift critical workloads to alternate AWS regions while recovery efforts continue.
The company did not explicitly link the incidents to the Iranian strikes when responding to questions, but the outages coincided with the broader attack campaign that has hit airports, ports, and residential areas in the UAE and neighbouring countries.
AWS additionally reported localised power problems at its Bahrain data centre, although it has not disclosed whether physical impact was involved in that disruption.
The outages have affected services for some financial institutions and other customers relying on AWS infrastructure in the region, prompting reliance on backups and alternative cloud zones until full operations are restored.
Recovery is expected to take “multiple hours” as AWS coordinates with local authorities to repair power systems, cooling infrastructure, and connectivity links disrupted by the events.