Amazon Web Services said Tuesday it can't restore access to cloud-computing facilities in Bahrain and parts of the United Arab Emirates, more than six months after the sites were damaged by drone strikes in the early days of the Iran war.
The company said in an update posted to AWS' health dashboard that the damage at multiple Bahrain-based sites exceeded what its services are designed to withstand.
"After a thorough assessment, we have determined that we are unable to restore access to the resources and data hosted exclusively in this region," AWS wrote.
In a separate post, AWS said it's similarly been unable to recover resources and data stored in one of its availability zones in the UAE. It continues to work to restore two other UAE zones that were affected.
The posts mark AWS' first public update on the incidents since April. Amazon said in March that two of its data centers in the UAE had been directly struck by drones, while a facility in Bahrain was also damaged by a nearby strike. The company told customers to move their workloads to other AWS regions, and warned that instability was likely to continue in the Middle East, making operations "unpredictable."
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for the strikes and said it targeted the Bahrain facility for Amazon's support of the U.S. military.
The attacks have raised questions about the security of future data center developments in the Gulf region, which has looked to capitalize on the surge in infrastructure demand tied to the artificial intelligence boom. In May 2025, OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle and Cisco signed up to be core partners on UAE Stargate, a massive campus that was expected to have 5-gigawatt capacity and cover 10 square miles.
The UAE is now considering revising the project to disperse the facilities across the country, and implementing enhanced security measures, including building some sites underground, using blast-resistant concrete and drone and missile interceptors, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Amazon said it remains committed to supporting its customers in Bahrain and the UAE. The company said it expects to provide further updates on the situation in UAE "in the coming months," and will have more to share for users in Bahrain in early 2027.
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