American eCommerce giant Amazon’s cloud unit Amazon Web Services (AWS) has revealed that it will open three data centres in the UAE in the first half of next year to tap into the growing demand for cloud services in the country.
The new data centres will enable AWS to extend its data storage offering to public and private businesses, startups, and educational institutions, which are seeing an increase in demand for cloud solutions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the company.
The new AWS Middle East (UAE) Region will consist of three Availability Zones and become AWS’s second region in the Middle East with the existing AWS Region in Bahrain, offering customers more options and versatility to leverage innovative technology from the world’s leading cloud.
Peter DeSantis Senior VP – Global Infrastructure AWS
“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. 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.”
His Excellency Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development said, “AWS’s expansion into the UAE is a testament to our rapidly growing innovation ecosystem that will benefit from access to the world’s leading cloud platform and its advanced technologies and solutions. Building on Abu Dhabi’s smart infrastructure and digital transformation, AWS’s investment will further enable innovators and companies with globally-relevant solutions to realize new opportunities in the UAE and beyond.”
Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones and across multiple regions to achieve even greater fault tolerance, as per the company statement.
The addition of the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region will enable local customers with data residency requirements to store their data in the UAE while also providing even lower latency across the country.
“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. 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,” commented HE Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO).
