This isn’t the first time that the American tech giant’s data centers have been attacked in the area. In fact, Iran used drones and missiles to hit several AWS Middle East regional data centers just days after the U.S. began its air strikes against the country. The damage to the sites has gotten to the point that Amazon put them in “hard down” status between late March and early April, with the last update on the AWS Health Dashboard saying that the Middle East (Bahrain) Region (ME-SOUTH-1) “is currently unavailable.”
It isn’t clear if Amazon has begun work on restoring its services in the region. The U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on June 17, 2026, but the entire thing collapsed after the latter allegedly attacked three ships in the Strait of Hormuz that were sailing in Omani waters on July 7. This led to an escalating series of retaliations, with one of the recent Iranian strikes resulting in American casualties in Jordan. Aside from hitting the nuclear powerplant that’s still under construction, U.S. Central Command said that it also “targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces that launched attacks against U.S. service members in Jordan on July 17.” The IRGC said that this is what led to its most recent attacks on AWS Bahrain.
Despite the strikes, it seems that it had no effect on Amazon’s services — the company has long moved its customers to sites unaffected by the conflict, ensuring service continuity. While it’s possible that the tech giant is trying to repair the damage to its sites, it hasn’t released any updates about the AWS Bahrain data center. As long as the war between the U.S. and Iran hasn’t resulted in lasting peace, American infrastructure in the region is in grave danger of being attacked, especially as the IRGC has directly threatened American tech companies like Microsoft , Apple, Google , and even OpenAI’s $30-bilion Stargate data center in Dubai .
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Amazon’s Middle East data centers damaged by Iran drone and missile attacks will be down for several months during repairs
The Middle East had everything data center builders and hyperscalers could wish for — then the Iran war happened
AI data center bans are rapidly multiplying across the US
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/amazon-data-center-in-bahrain-struck-and-destroyed-by-iranian-cruise-missiles-state-media-claims-attacks-launched-against-aws-site-in-response-to-alleged-us-strikes-on-an-under-construction-nuclear-plant#main
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