TLDR
- AWS data centers in Bahrain and the UAE were damaged by drone strikes linked to the Iran conflict.
- CEO Matt Garman confirmed teams are working 24/7 to keep regional infrastructure online.
- Dozens of AWS services across the two Middle East regions remain unavailable.
- Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy claimed it targeted Amazon infrastructure in Bahrain.
- Rising energy costs and helium supply pressures are adding further strain to operations.
Amazon (AMZN) stock rose 3.68%, trading up $7.87 in after-hours, as the broader market digested news of serious disruption to its cloud infrastructure arm.
Amazon Web Services is fighting to keep its Middle East operations online after drone strikes damaged data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The strikes are tied to the ongoing Iran conflict, which escalated in February.
AWS CEO Matt Garman addressed the situation directly at the HumanX conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. “It’s a really difficult situation, and we’re working incredibly hard,” he told CNBC. “We have teams, 24/7, working to make sure that we can keep our infrastructure up for our customers in that region.”
Dozens of services across the Bahrain and UAE regions remain offline, according to AWS’s own status page. Last week, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy announced it had specifically targeted Amazon’s data center infrastructure in Bahrain. AWS declined to comment on that announcement but pointed to an earlier statement confirming the Bahrain region “has been disrupted as a result of the ongoing conflict.”
Services Still Down Across Two Regions
The disruption is not a quick fix. AWS launched its Bahrain region in 2019 and its UAE region in 2022 â both were built to serve the growing demand for cloud services across the Middle East, including from government agencies and financial institutions.
The scale of the outage is putting real pressure on enterprise customers who chose these regions for data residency reasons. Many businesses operate in the Middle East specifically because local regulations require data to stay within national borders â a multi-region failover to Europe or Asia is not always a legal option.
The conflict is also hitting costs. Energy prices in the region have climbed since fighting began in February. Data centers, especially those running generative AI workloads, are heavy energy consumers. Helium â a key material in semiconductor manufacturing â has also become harder to source. Qatar, which sits near the Strait of Hormuz, produces more than a third of the world’s helium supply, and movement through the strait has been restricted.
On Monday, President Trump threatened strikes on civilian infrastructure if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, pushing oil prices sharply higher.
AWS Still Committed to the Region
Despite the disruption, Garman struck a measured tone on the long-term outlook.
“There’s a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit,” he said. “There’s a willingness to invest. And so our and my excitement about investing long term in that region is just as strong as it’s ever been.”
Google, Microsoft, and Oracle all operate or are building competing data centers in the Middle East. All face the same question of how to guarantee uptime when physical infrastructure is at risk from military action.
AWS spokesperson confirmed the Bahrain outage but offered no timeline for full restoration. The company’s status page continues to show multiple services as unavailable across both the Bahrain and UAE regions as of Tuesday afternoon.
Considering a new stock? You may want to see whatâs on our watchlist first.
Our team at Knockout Stocks follows top-performing analysts and market-moving trends to spot potential winners early. Weâve identified five stocks gaining quiet attention that could be worth watching now. Create your free account to unlock the full report and get ongoing stock insights.Get 3 Free Stock Ebooks
Discover top-performing stocks in AI, Crypto, and Technology with expert analysis.
- Top 10 AI Stocks - Leading AI companies
- Top 10 Crypto Stocks - Blockchain leaders
- Top 10 Tech Stocks - Tech giants
