AWS Says Middle East Cloud Repairs Will Take Months
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- AWS posted an April 30 status update saying its ME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1 regions "suffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle East" and full restoration is expected to take "several months" — putting total recovery from the February drone strikes at nearly half a year.
- AWS has suspended billing in the affected regions after initially waiving all March 2026 usage charges at an estimated cost of $150 million.
- AWS "strongly" recommended customers migrate to other cloud regions and rely on remote backups, with Dubai-based super app Careem restoring full service after an overnight migration.
- An internal document obtained by Business Insider detailed damage knocking 14 EC2 server racks offline plus impact on five more racks, with flooding from activated fire suppression systems and mechanical failures in cooling systems.
- London-based Pure Data Centre Group announced it will pause Middle East data center investments until the conflict subsides, signaling broader developer retreat from the region.
- The conflict began February 28 with US and Israeli attacks on Iran triggering retaliatory strikes; it has since settled into an uneasy ceasefire with dueling naval blockades of the Strait of Hormuz.
Why it matters: AWS UAE and Bahrain customers face months without their primary cloud region, with Amazon absorbing an estimated $150 million in waived March charges alone. With rival Pure Data Centre Group pulling out of the region, the war is making Gulf cloud infrastructure a risk other builders won't underwrite.
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