Amazon Cloud Services Disrupted in the UAE and Bahrain

Cloud computing services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced significant disruptions in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the company confirmed, amid escalating regional tensions and retaliatory strikes in the Gulf.

According to AWS status updates and reports, two availability zones in the UAE – clusters of data centres that power cloud infrastructure – were left without power following incidents at local facilities. One zone was affected after unidentified “objects” struck the data centre, triggering sparks and a fire that prompted the local fire department to shut off power as a safety precaution. The company cautioned that full recovery for the affected services could take multiple hours.

In addition to the UAE impact, AWS acknowledged power and connectivity issues at a data centre in Bahrain, reporting increased error rates and service degradation across several cloud offerings. Though the company did not specify causes for the Bahrain disruption, it noted that localized power problems were affecting service availability.

The disruptions come amid wider regional turmoil tied to retaliatory missile and drone attacks by Iran on Gulf states, including the UAE, in response to earlier strikes on Iranian territory. International news agencies reporting on the broader conflict noted that critical infrastructure in airports, ports and residential areas across the Gulf have also been targeted in the recent escalation.

AWS serves governments, businesses and organisations across the Middle East that rely on its cloud platform for essential services such as data storage, computing and online applications. Outages or degraded performance in its infrastructure can have ripple effects on digital services across sectors — from financial systems and government platforms to mobile and online applications.

While some recovery was reported late Monday for parts of the AWS network in the UAE, the company advised customers to use alternate regions or availability zones where possible until full service is restored. AWS did not confirm whether the disruption was directly linked to the regional strikes, declining to attribute the outages to any specific external action.

As the situation develops, companies and users dependent on AWS services throughout the Gulf region are monitoring status updates, while cloud engineers work to restore normal operations and minimise further impact on digital infrastructure.