AWS Confirms Permanent Data Loss in Bahrain and UAE After Drone Strikes
AWS confirmed permanent data loss at its Bahrain and UAE data centers following Iranian drone strikes, dealing a major blow to the Gulf's ambitions as a regional tech hub.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced that some customer data stored at its data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates cannot be recovered following drone attacks earlier this spring, the Wall Street Journal reported. This marks the first official confirmation that data housed in targeted cloud facilities may be permanently lost.
AWS data centers in both countries have been largely offline since Iran launched swarms of drones against them. In Bahrain, the damage extended across multiple company facilities. According to Amazon, data stored exclusively in Bahrain cannot be recovered, along with data kept in one of the company's availability zones in the UAE—a cluster of data centers with independent power, cooling, and network infrastructures.
Global Data Processing Hubs at Risk
The Iranian strikes, months-long facility outages, and permanent data loss deliver a severe blow to Gulf ambitions of becoming global hubs for data processing and artificial intelligence industries. The incidents also introduce unprecedented risks for American corporations considering multi-billion-dollar investments in regional infrastructure.
Following the March attacks, Amazon advised clients to migrate workloads to alternative regions in the US and Europe. Most customers completed the transfer before AWS facilities in Bahrain were struck again in April. The attacks ignited fires, crippled infrastructure, and cut power supplies, while water used by firefighters inflicted additional damage on sensitive hardware.
"I don't think it has ever happened that a cloud region lost customer data because of an airstrike," said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at cybersecurity firm Infoblox, noting that such facilities were never engineered to withstand missile impacts.
Future Infrastructure and Investments
In response to the security crisis, officials in the UAE are reportedly considering building underground data centers and deploying anti-drone defense systems around future sites, measures that will significantly escalate construction costs.
Despite heightened risks, major tech giants continue pushing forward with regional projects. Amazon and Microsoft reaffirmed plans last month to launch new data centers in Saudi Arabia by the end of the year, while construction proceeds on a 200-megawatt Microsoft data center in Abu Dhabi.
"We remain committed to supporting our customers in Bahrain over the long term and will share a further update in early 2027," AWS stated.
