Amazon's AWS reports outage after UAE data center struck by 'objects'

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March 2 : Amazon's cloud-computing facilities in the Middle East faced power and connectivity issues on Monday after unidentified "objects" struck its data center in the United Arab Emirates.

The objects had triggered a fire on Sunday that forced authorities to eventually cut power to two clusters of Amazon data centers in the UAE, with restoration expected to take at least a day, according to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) status page.

Localized power issues impacted AWS services in both the UAE and neighboring Bahrain, according to the page. Financial institutions that use AWS services have been affected by the outage, said one person with direct knowledge of the situation, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

While Amazon did not identify the objects, the incident happened on the same day Iran fired a barrage of drones and missiles at Gulf States in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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A strike, if confirmed, on the AWS facility in the UAE will mark the first time a major U.S. tech company's data center has been knocked offline by military action. It could also raise questions around Big Tech's pace of expansion in the region.

U.S. tech giants have been positioning the UAE as a regional hub for artificial intelligence computing needed to power services such as ChatGPT. Microsoft said in November it plans to bring its total investment in the UAE to $15 billion by the end of 2029 and will use Nvidia chips for its data centers there.

"In previous conflicts, regional adversaries such as Iran and its proxies targeted pipelines, refineries, and oil fields in Gulf partner states. In the compute era, these actors could also target data centers, energy infrastructure supporting compute, and fiber chokepoints," Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said last week.

Microsoft as well as Google and Oracle - both of which also operate facilities in the UAE - did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

"We are expecting recovery to take at least a day, as it requires repair of facilities, cooling and power systems, coordination with local authorities, and careful assessment to ensure the safety of our operators," AWS said.

The outage had disrupted a dozen core cloud services and the company advised customers to back up critical data and shift operations to servers in unaffected AWS regions.

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank said its platforms and mobile app were unavailable due to a region-wide IT disruption, although it did not directly link the outage to the AWS incident.

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