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AWS has paused billing for customers in its ME-CENTRAL-1 (UAE) and ME-SOUTH-1 (Bahrain) regions after drone and missile attacks caused physical damage to server racks, fire-suppression flooding and cooling failures. The company says repairs will take several more months, extending a prior waiver that cost roughly $150 million and prompting guidance for customers to migrate workloads and rely on backups. The incidents highlight the physical vulnerabilities of cloud infrastructure in conflict zones, threaten regional availability and business continuity, and are already affecting investment decisions by data-center developers wary of geopolitical risk.
Cloud outages from physical attacks show that infrastructure in conflict zones faces unique risks that can disrupt customer workloads and regional availability. Tech professionals must account for geopolitical and physical resilience when designing cloud architectures and disaster recovery plans.
Dossier last updated: 2026-05-10 13:10:43
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AWS has paused billing some Middle East cloud customers after war-related damage to one of its regional data centers forced ongoing repairs, reportedly impacting around 19 server racks. The reported outages prompted AWS to stop charging affected customers while restoration continues; the company has been discreet about exact data center locations but is addressing physical damage caused by drone and missile strikes linked to the conflict. This matters because attacks on data centers highlight the physical vulnerabilities of cloud infrastructure, risks to business continuity for regional customers, and broader security challenges for major cloud providers operating in conflict zones.
Amazon Web Services says damage from Iranian drone strikes on data centers in the UAE and Bahrain will take several more months to repair, prolonging cloud disruptions across its ME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1 regions. AWS posted an April 30 dashboard update that the regions “suffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle East,” are unable to support customer applications, and have suspended relevant billing operations during restoration. AWS previously waived March 2026 usage charges for impacted customers, a move that cost about $150 million. The extended outage and repair timeline matter because they affect regional cloud availability, customer workloads, and underline physical infrastructure vulnerability amid geopolitical conflict.
AWS said on April 30 that two Middle East regions (ME-CENTRAL-1 in the UAE and ME-SOUTH-1 in Bahrain) suffered damage from Iranian drone strikes and related incidents, and that full restoration of services could take several months. AWS has suspended billing for affected customers while repairs continue—extending an earlier waiver of March usage charges worth about $150 million—and is urging customers to migrate workloads and use backups. Internal reports describe physical damage to EC2 server racks, flooding from fire suppression, and cooling failures. The disruption has prompted at least one data-center developer to pause Middle East investments, underscoring broader infrastructure and geopolitical risks to cloud resilience.