In wake of the war in the Middle East, and incessant drone strikes that have damaged at least three data centers in the region, global technology giants such as Amazon, and NVIDIA, are reorienting activities in the region to cope with the ongoing crisis.
Amazon has temporarily shut down its facilities and offices in the UAE, and reportedly urged employees to work remotely. “We are adjusting operations in response to the evolving situation, including temporary pauses where necessary,” an Amazon spokesperson told the BBC.
While it has made recovery efforts to mitigate the damage caused by drone strikes on three of its facilities – two in the UAE, and one in Bahrain, Amazon is also urging customers to move workloads to alternate AWS regions.
In a post on the AWS Health Dashboard at 8:14 AM PST, it said, “We continue to make progress on recovery efforts across multiple workstreams.” However, it managed customer expectations with a cautiously optimistic, “Full recovery of GET operations for pre-existing data remains dependent on restoring the affected infrastructure.”
It also advised customers to consider other AWS regions saying, “We continue to strongly recommend that customers with workloads running in the Middle East take action now to migrate those workloads to alternate AWS Regions. Customers should enact their disaster recovery plans, recover from remote backups stored in other Regions, and update their applications to direct traffic away from the affected Regions. For customers requiring guidance on alternate regions, we recommend considering AWS Regions in the United States, Europe, or Asia Pacific, as appropriate for your latency and data residency requirements.”
Meanwhile, CNBC cited an email sent by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to all employees on Tuesday, and reported that the AI chip manufacturer had also shut down its offices in Dubai, and advised employees to work remotely. NVIDIA also has a billion dollar R&D facility in Israel. “Nvidia has deep roots in the region,” Huang reportedly wrote. “Thousands of our colleagues live there, and many more across the globe have family and friends affected by these events. Like you, I am watching with great concern for the safety of our Nvidia families.”
While NVIDIA didn’t confirm the shut down of its Dubai offices, a spokesperson for the company told the BBC, ”Regarding our operations in Israel and the Middle East, our primary concern is for the safety of our employees, their families, and all those affected during this difficult time”.
Meanwhile, dozens of Google’s cloud unit employees who were attending an event in Dubai last week, were reportedly still stranded in the war torn region. The crisis has been exacerbated by the bombing of at least two airports in the UAE, and the closure of the wider airspace in the region. Relief and evacuation flights are being planned, even as the United States advised its citizens to “depart now” if they were in the Middle East. Meanwhile, with an escalation of violence in the Strait of Hormuz, there are growing concerns over an impending surge in oil prices, and well as supply chain disruptions.