Overview
- In March 2026, Iranian drone and missile strikes hit AWS data centers in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, causing fires, power failures, and water damage from fire‑suppression systems that hit multiple availability zones at once.
- AWS said the destruction “spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi‑AZ services are designed to withstand,” and it has not restored the Bahrain region or one UAE availability zone as of mid‑September.
- Most affected customers have migrated workloads to other AWS regions or restored from remote backups while AWS provides billing relief and hands‑on support for recovery.
- The outages have left hundreds of regional services disrupted, strained organizations with local data‑residency rules such as banks and health providers, and raised costs for hardened siting and insurance.
- The strikes have altered Gulf cloud and AI investment plans by stalling high‑profile leases and prompting consideration of underground builds and local air defenses, even as some projects in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi continue.