SECOND AWS REGION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Amazon cloud arm, AWS (Amazon Web Services) has just announced that it plans to open a cloud region in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), consisting of three separated data centers or Availability Zones.

The planned UAE cloud infrastructure will become AWS’s second region in the Middle East, joining the existing AWS Region in Bahrain which was opened in 2019. Globally, the company boasts of having about 80 Availability Zones (Cloud Data Centers) across 25 geographic regions.

“We are excited to build on the great momentum of cloud adoption in the Middle East by providing more choice for customers in the UAE to run applications and store data locally,” said Peter DeSantis, Senior Vice President of Global Infrastructure, AWS.

“The new AWS Region supports the UAE’s focus on promoting technology innovation that has made it a thriving global hub for entrepreneurs, e-governments, and multi-national businesses. With the new region, organizations of all sizes will be able to innovate faster and serve end-users with even lower latency across the region.”

As announced, the new AWS Middle East Region (UAE) Region will build upon the company’s existing business operations in the country, which include two AWS Direct Connect locations and two Amazon CloudFront edge locations launched in 2018.

“We welcome the upcoming AWS Region, which will bring advanced cloud infrastructure to the UAE. This comes in line with our goal of attracting investments that boost technology capabilities,” said His Excellency Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO).

“It is another example of the growing partnership between the public and private sectors in the emirate aimed to accelerate breakthroughs and advance large-scale digital transformation, strengthening Abu Dhabi’s position as a global hub for innovation. We look forward to collaborating with AWS across the knowledge economy, including education initiatives, cloud skills training, and startup enablement programs.”

According to the plan, the new UAE cloud infrastructure region is expected to be ready for customers in first half of 2022, enabling local customers with data residency requirements to store their data in the UAE while also providing lower latency across the country.