Tech giant Amazon confirmed late Monday that two of its data centres in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were “directly struck” by drones, affecting cloud services across parts of the Middle East.
A facility in Bahrain was also reportedly damaged by “a drone strike in close proximity,” according to an update on Amazon’s service dashboard.
Several Gulf cities have experienced collateral damage in recent days amid ongoing strikes and stray weaponry following attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran, which resulted in the death of Iran’s supreme leader and other top officials.
“Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, both affected regions have experienced physical impacts to infrastructure as a result of drone strikes,” Amazon said in the update.
“These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage.”
The company did not clarify whether any employees were injured, but stated it is “working closely with local authorities while prioritising the safety of our personnel throughout our recovery efforts.”
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s leading cloud computing provider, competes with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud in providing infrastructure for popular apps, websites, and generative AI platforms.
The company advised affected users to back up critical data and consider switching to Amazon servers in other regions.
On Sunday, Amazon had reported that one of its UAE data centres had been struck by “objects,” without specifying further, warning customers of potential service interruptions and unpredictable challenges.
