Amazon Web Services said Tuesday it is unable to restore access to some customer data hosted in Persian Gulf data centers that were struck by Iranian drones in the spring.
AWS data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have been mostly offline since Iran launched drone swarms at them in the opening days of the U.S. war against the Islamic Republic. The damage in Bahrain was spread across multiple AWS facilities.
AWS's Tuesday announcement is the first indication that some data stored exclusively in those countries could be gone forever. Data exclusively stored in AWS data centers across Bahrain are beyond restoration. One AWS availability zone-a group of data centers with independent power, cooling and networking infrastructure-in the U.A.E. shares the same fate.
"A cloud region losing customer data because of an airstrike-I don't think that's ever happened before," said Doug Madory, head of internet analysis at cybersecurity firm Infoblox.
The Iranian attacks, monthslong AWS data center blackouts and permanent data loss pose a setback for Arab Gulf states that are looking to become world-leading data processors for industries such as artificial intelligence. They add a significant new risk for U.S. companies weighing investments that can cost tens of billions of dollars.
"I just don't think that they try to build these facilities to survive missile strikes," said Madory.
To address concerns about strikes, Emirati officials have floated the prospect of building data centers underground and placing drone defense systems near the computing centers, both of which would add to the enormous cost, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
After its U.A.E. and Bahrain facilities were attacked in March, Amazon recommended its customers migrate data to other regions, including the U.S. and Europe. Most did so before fresh Iranian strikes again hit AWS facilities in Bahrain in April. The Iranian strikes on the Amazon facilities set fires, damaged infrastructure and forced authorities to cut the power. The water used to extinguish the fires caused even more damage.
"We have supported the remaining customers in re-establishing their operations in alternate regions, using backups where available or implementing alternative solutions to mitigate the impact of inaccessible data," Amazon said in its Tuesday update.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the spring threatened American tech companies that it accused of contributing to the attacks on Iran, naming Microsoft, Oracle, Alphabet and Nvidia.
Some tech companies are moving ahead with Gulf data-center projects. They are betting that the war will end eventually and are drawn to the gusher of Gulf capital. Beefing up projects in the Gulf with better defenses could be cheaper and faster than starting over in other locations.
Amazon and Microsoft separately said last month that they would still launch data centers in Saudi Arabia by the end of the year. Microsoft struck a deal for a 200-megawatt data center in Abu Dhabi in late 2025. Construction is under way.
"We remain committed to supporting our customers in Bahrain in the long term and will share a further update in early 2027," AWS said in its Tuesday announcement.
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