Mon, 02 Mar 2026
Amazon’s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is experiencing connectivity disruptions across its data centre operations in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, according to a Reuters report citing the company.
While AWS did not directly attribute the outages to a specific cause, the disruptions come amid escalating regional tensions in the Gulf. Iranian retaliatory strikes have targeted airports, ports, and residential areas following recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
In the UAE, one AWS Availability Zone remains without power after the company confirmed that “objects” struck a data centre, creating sparks and triggering a fire. The incident occurred at approximately 4:30 pm Dubai time on March 1, according to a notice on the AWS Health Dashboard.
Emergency services shut down power to the affected facility and its backup generators while extinguishing the blaze.
“One of our Availability Zones… was impacted by objects that struck the data center, creating sparks and fire,” AWS said, referring to its regional cluster of data centres.
As of Monday, AWS said it did not have an estimated timeline for restoring power to the impacted site. However, other Availability Zones in the region remain operational, with traffic being rerouted to minimise service disruption.
Amazon reported partial recovery in the UAE but advised customers to consider using alternative regions while it continues to investigate “additional connectivity issues and errors.”
The incident underscores the vulnerability of critical digital infrastructure during periods of geopolitical instability, even as major cloud providers rely on multi-zone redundancy to maintain service continuity.
