Amazon data centers in Gulf still offline 6 months after Iranian strikes

Key Points

1. Amazon Web Services sites in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain remain mostly offline after Iranian drone strikes, the Journal reported.
2. Iran fired more than 2,800 drones and missiles at the UAE during the war, exceeding what it sent at Israel.
3. The damage puts the Gulf's multibillion-dollar bid to become a global AI processing hub under new physical-risk scrutiny.

The latest:

Two Amazon Web Services facilities hit by Iranian drones remain mostly out of service more than six months later, The Wall Street Journal reported. Amazon has told clients to shift their data to other regions while it repairs the Abu Dhabi and Bahrain sites, and has not set a completion date. The company said it is working to restore services and has given affected customers billing relief.

Details:

• The strikes: The Journal reported that Iran launched drone swarms at American data centers in the Gulf the day after the US and Israel opened strikes on Iran. The attacks set fires and damaged infrastructure, forcing authorities to cut power, and water used to fight the fires caused further damage.
• The outage: More than 130 computing services remain disrupted at the Abu Dhabi facility and 140 in Bahrain, with only five restored at each, according to the Journal. Regional banking apps, corporate services and fintech platforms went down during the response.
• The scale of attacks: The UAE absorbed the heaviest share of Iranian fire during the war, with more than 2,800 drones and missiles directed at it — far more than Iran fired at Israel, the Journal reported. Amazon facilities sit within 200 miles of Iran.
• The OpenAI question: Emirati and US officials had presented OpenAI as the inaugural tenant of Abu Dhabi’s planned complex, eventually taking 20% of capacity. People familiar with the matter said OpenAI still has not signed a lease and the deal now appears stalled. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
• The Abu Dhabi project: During a May 2025 visit, President Trump watched Emirati leaders unveil a data-center complex requiring 5 gigawatts of power, equivalent to more than two Hoover Dams. The UAE had lobbied Washington for years and won the same access to advanced AI chips as European countries.
• The economics: AI data centers are far larger than the cloud facilities struck in the war, making them easier targets and far costlier. Each gigawatt of capacity is estimated at a minimum of $50 billion covering servers and infrastructure, according to the Journal.
• The defenses floated: Emirati officials have raised building data centers underground and placing drone-defense systems near computing sites, people familiar with the matter said. Both options would add to already enormous costs. No specific plan or timeline has been announced.
• Data sovereignty bent: The UAE, which normally imposes strict data-sovereignty rules on domestic companies, has allowed some entities to move data abroad while Amazon restores its local facility, industry insiders said. Amazon scrambled to help clients back up and shift data to the US, Europe and elsewhere.
• Iranian threats: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened American tech companies this spring that it accused of contributing to the attacks on Iran, naming Microsoft, Oracle, Alphabet and Nvidia, the Journal reported.
• Building anyway: Amazon and Microsoft each said last month they will still launch data centers in Saudi Arabia by year-end. Microsoft signed a deal for a 200-megawatt facility in Abu Dhabi in late 2025, with construction under way. Some firms are betting the war ends and are drawn by Gulf capital.

Background:

The Gulf’s pitch rested on abundant land, state backing, cheap energy and fast permitting. Aaron Bartnick, a White House technology official under Biden who now holds a fellowship at Columbia University, assessed that the Iran war has flipped much of that math on its head.

Between the lines:

Doug Madory of Infoblox assessed that cloud providers still want proximity to Middle East commercial demand, but that risk is changing the calculus — comparing struck data centers to ships in the Strait of Hormuz, where hitting two scares the rest off. The stalled OpenAI lease and the floated underground option both suggest the cost of insuring against drones, not capital scarcity, is now the binding constraint.

What’s next

Watch for an Amazon completion date for the Abu Dhabi and Bahrain repairs, whether OpenAI signs a lease for the 5-gigawatt complex, and whether Amazon and Microsoft meet their year-end Saudi launch targets.