Amazon Middle East datacenter suffers second drone hit as Iran steps up attacks
News
Apr 2, 20264 mins
Huge sums invested by US tech companies are at risk as the Iranian strategy of targeting datacenters becomes clear.
Iranian drones have targeted Amazon’s largest Middle East datacenter in Bahrain for the second time in a month in part of what appears to be a planned strategy to disrupt the region’s digital economy.
According to press reports, the ME-SOUTH-1 (Bahrain) AWS site, operated by telecom company Batelco, was hit by the latest drone attack on April 1. Bahrain’s interior minister confirmed to the FT that the attack had caused a fire.
On April 2, the AWS Service Health status page for ME-SOUTH-1 stated that AWS services in Bahrain have been “impacted”, the lowest of three levels of disruption.
However, social media posts by users suggest that the site became unavailable after being attacked around 4am (9pm ET).
Iran first attacked the ME-SOUTH-1 and ME-CENTRAL-1 (United Arab Emirates) on March 1, causing major disruption to services. At the time, Amazon advised Middle East customers to shift AWS workloads to other parts of the world.
“Customers should enact their disaster recovery plans, recover from remote backups stored in other Regions, and update their applications to direct traffic away from the affected Regions,” Amazon said.
Amazon was contacted for comment on the latest Bahrain drone incident, but said it had nothing to add beyond the statement in its current advisory.
Denial of infrastructure
Doing the damage is the Shaheed 136, a small and unsophisticated drone designed to overwhelm defenders with numbers. If only one in twenty reaches its target, the price-performance still exceeds that of more expensive systems.
When aimed at critical infrastructure such as datacenters, the effect is also psychological; the threat of an attack on its own can be enough to make it difficult for organizations to continue using an at-risk facility.
Iran’s targeting of the Bahrain datacenter is unlikely to be random. Amazon opened its ME-SOUTH-1 AWS presence in 2019, and it is still believed to be the company’s largest site in the Middle East.
Oracle office in Dubai hit in Iran strikes? What UAE said
Story by Edited by Sanstuti Nath
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Oracle Office In Dubai Hit In Iran Strikes? What UAE Said
Amid Iran’s continued attacks on US and Israeli targets in the Middle East, the authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have denied reports claiming that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have targeted a data centre belonging to American tech firm Oracle in Dubai.
Oracle’s data center services cost $30 billion per year for OpenAI’s needs, as reported in July 2025. This includes building and operating massive facilities like the Stargate project in Texas. TechCrunch DCD
And the center is a target now:
Several days ago, the IRGC named Oracle among a group of American corporations it accuses of enabling U.S. and Israeli military activity, alongside Apple, Boeing, Cisco, Google, HP, IBM, Meta, and Microsoft. Oracle has cloud and artificial intelligence contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense, and its chairman, Larry Ellison, has longstanding ties with Israel, which were among the factors cited in the accusations. In addition, the IRGC targeted American aluminum and steel industries in Bahrain and the UAE, as well as Rafael arms factories in Israel.
While the officials in the United Arab Emirates have not confirmed any successful hit on infrastructure in Dubai. Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior confirmed that an Iranian strike has set ‘a facility of a company’ on fire. That company is said to be Batelco, the country’s largest telecommunications company that hosts infrastructure for Amazon Web Services.
Middle East datacentre capacity set to triple by 2030
Driven by government vision, booming demand for cloud and artificial intelligence, and strategic investments, the region is rapidly becoming a global digital hub, reshaping the future of connectivity and technology
The Middle East datacentre market is undergoing a massive transformation, emerging as a global powerhouse for digital infrastructure.
This evolution is fuelled by a convergence of factors: ambitious government-led digital strategies, surging demand for cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) services, cost-optimisation imperatives and the arrival of both global hyperscalers and innovative local providers.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Qatar are positioned as a digital gateway between Asia and Africa, and the region’s datacentre ecosystem is set to triple in capacity by 2030, reshaping the global digital landscape.
Luis Bravo, senior analyst research EMEA at datacenterHawk, highlights the region’s unique strengths: “First, it’s about access to power and energy, the Middle East is a gateway for Asia and Europe, and many submarine cables are from Singapore, India, and Africa to Oman, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. That’s a big driver, and energy generation capacity is key, the location and energy capacity are major advantages.”
According to the Middle East datacentre construction market – industry outlook & forecast 2025-2030 report, the Middle East datacentre construction market is projected to reach almost US$7bn by 2030. This expansion is driven by a robust pipeline of new projects. Currently, existing third-party capacity is around 500MW (megawatts), and forecasts suggest it will triple to 1.5GW (gigawatts) by the end of the decade.
“The datacentre market in the Middle East is undergoing a major transformation right now. We’re seeing digitalisation accelerate at a remarkable pace, and what’s particularly notable is the proactive role that governments in the region are playing in driving this shift,” say Anisha Walia and Ismael Moreno-Gomez, manager and principal at Analysys Mason.
Regional hubs and strategic advantages
The UAE and Saudi Arabia are at the forefront of this transformation, leveraging their strategic locations, robust digital infrastructure and ambitious national visions. Dubai, in particular, has established itself as a regional datacentre hub, boasting world-class connectivity and a regulatory environment that attracts both global enterprises and cloud providers. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are also key centres, with significant investments in innovative city projects and AI-driven initiatives.
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the UAE’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031 are not only catalysing domestic demand but are positioning these nations as global technology hubs.
“The region’s going through a major digital transformation, with more people and businesses moving to the cloud,” says Shumon Zaman, chief information and digital officer at Ali & Sons.
“Then there’s the explosion of smart city projects like Neom in Saudi Arabia, which need powerful tech backbones to run. Plus, governments are pushing for data localisation, keeping data within national borders, which means local datacentres are a must. Lastly, there’s a big shift toward sustainable energy, and new datacentres are being built with green tech in mind.”
Walia and Moreno-Gomez from Analysys Mason add: “For example, in Saudi Arabia, digital transformation is a core part of Vision 2030. There’s a whole ecosystem of programmes that have been put in place, from the Digital Government Strategy and the establishment of the Digital Government Authority to widely used platforms like Absher, Seha Virtual Hospital and Tawakkalna. These are real, tangible efforts that are making a difference in how citizens engage with government services.”
The UAE is also making rapid progress on this front. Its Digital Government Strategy 2025 is very focused on creating user-centric, data-driven services. And it’s not just about the front end, the government is also investing heavily in infrastructure, particularly around cloud and AI, through initiatives such as the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031.
At the same time, the GCC is seeing a massive surge in demand for AI inference, cloud and digital services. Between 2025 and 2029, cloud services in the region are projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 9-11%. This is being fuelled by changing consumer behaviour, more e-commerce, digital payments, gaming and streaming. All of this is adding pressure on the existing infrastructure and creating strong demand for both hyperscale and colocation datacentres.
The hyperscaler wave
The Middle East’s strategic importance has not gone unnoticed by global hyperscalers. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle have all established or announced cloud regions in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, often partnering with local telecom giants or government-backed entities.
Amazon Web Services, for instance, has committed more than US$5bn to develop new datacentres in Saudi Arabia, while Google Cloud and Microsoft have launched cloud regions in Dubai and Dammam, respectively.
While global players make headlines, local providers are equally instrumental in shaping the region’s datacentre landscape. Khazna Data Centers, headquartered in Dubai, is a standout example. With a mission to build and operate highly secure, energy-efficient and scalable facilities, Khazna has become a trusted partner to enterprises seeking cost-effective, sustainable infrastructure.
“Because of the growth we have seen in the region in Khazna, we have increased our capacity. During Covid, the way businesses adopted the cloud enabled us to scale to fulfil their needs. For us, the demand is in the GCC, mainly because of local regulations where data is required to be kept within the country,” says Greg Jasmin, head of international client development at Khazna Data Centres.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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