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Drone strikes damage AWS data centres in UAE and Bahrain

By Startup Enthusiast · 18 March 2026

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AWS operates data centres worldwide that host cloud services for businesses

Drone strikes in March 2026 damaged three AWS data centres in UAE and Bahrain, causing outages for banks and Careem

The attacks may push some cloud workloads to India, which has stable policy and expanding data centre capacity

Drone strikes in March 2026 damaged three AWS data centres in the UAE (two) and Bahrain (one).
The strikes caused structural damage, power disruption, and water damage from fire.
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and Careem reported outages.
AWS advised customers to reroute workloads to the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific regions.
Iranian armed forces claimed the strike targeted US-Israeli military and intelligence support roles of the data centres.
Data centres are now seen as legitimate military targets in the drone warfare era.
AWS and Microsoft Azure may reroute workloads to India and Singapore, per an ET report.

Hyperscalers are seeking capacity in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kochi for banking workloads.
Ashish Banerjee (Gartner analyst) said incremental infrastructure demand could accrue to India.
Amit Sarin (Anant Raj MD) noted India has stable policy, good connectivity, and an expanding data centre ecosystem.
Nasscom issued an advisory on March 9 urging firms to evaluate alternate infrastructure routing.
Banerjee cautioned any shift in data centre geography will be selective, not large-scale.

AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud together command 60% of the global cloud market.
Public cloud spending is expected to exceed $1 trillion in 2026, per IDC.
AWS agreed to invest ₹60,000 crore in Telangana data centres in January 2025.
India hosts 6 of 41 AWS availability zones in Asia Pacific, plus 7 edge network locations.