Technology giant Amazon confirmed late Monday, February 2, that two of its data centres in the United Arab Emirates were directly struck by drones, causing disruptions to cloud services across parts of the Middle East.
The company also revealed that a separate facility in Bahrain sustained damage after a drone strike occurred nearby, according to an update published on its service dashboard.
The incidents come as several Gulf cities experience spillover effects from the escalating conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran. The regional instability has reportedly seen strikes and stray projectiles affect civilian infrastructure following coordinated attacks on Iran that resulted in the death of the country’s Supreme Leader and other senior officials.
In a statement, Amazon said the affected facilities suffered physical damage linked to drone activity amid the ongoing hostilities. The strikes reportedly caused structural destruction, disrupted power supply to key systems and, in some cases, activated fire suppression systems that led to additional water damage inside the buildings.
The company did not confirm whether any employees were injured but stated that it is working closely with local authorities while prioritising staff safety during recovery efforts.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud computing provider, supplies digital infrastructure powering major applications, websites and artificial intelligence systems globally. It competes with platforms such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Amazon has advised customers in affected areas to back up critical data and, where possible, shift workloads to servers in other regions to minimise service disruptions.
On Sunday, the company had initially reported that one of its UAE facilities had been struck by unspecified “objects,” warning users of potential operational instability before confirming the drone-related damage.