Why some countries fail while others prosper in the Middle East and Africa

More than half a year has passed since Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain were struck by drones. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the company has now instructed clients to move their data to alternative regions. The company is repairing the damaged data centers but has declined to provide a recovery schedule.

The assault on these data centers occurred following the US and Israel's strikes on Iran in February of this year. The Bahraini data center was targeted by cruise missiles, and state media in Iran stated it was destroyed. This development is problematic for the UAE, which has been striving to become a global data processing leader and had planned to buy AI chips for its data centers in a 5-gigawatt complex in May 2025.

However, the UAE has seen its plans hindered for over a year. OpenAI had intended to occupy 20% of the data center's total capacity, a loss that would undoubtedly harm UAE officials should the plans not resume. The UAE, appreciating the regional instability's threat to its goals, is exploring options like underground data centers and drone defense systems to safeguard new data centers from drone attacks.

The AWS data centers in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, critical to various businesses in the banking and financial sectors, have experienced fires and damaged infrastructure following the strikes. The UAE's data centers remain a common target for drone operators, and AWS is not alone in facing data center attacks. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reported in April that it had targeted a data center linked to Oracle in Dubai, warning American tech firms, including Microsoft, Oracle, Alphabet, and Nvidia, of their contribution to attacks on Iran.