Evaluating Cloud Platforms for Middle East

Provide a protective analysis relating to personal privacy, with Amazon saying there is "no automatic access to information," and stating that it has actually not disclosed the material of government/institutional customers stored outside the United States to the U.S.

Around 35% of cloud service centers in the region belong to American companies, totaling 31 centers, while Chinese-owned centers account for about 8%, with 7. Iran, meanwhile, relies entirely on four domestic business, offering it 100% regional cloud infrastructure. In general, 42% of the area's cloud services are provided by regional or numerous international business.

In general, every Gulf nation has a U.S. cloud presence. Israel relies 100% on American providers, consisting of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Oracle. Iran: The cloud environment is successfully localized. The research clearly found that the Iranian state has, over the years, constructed an facilities that keeps crucial services operating locally even if international connection is cut off through the National Information Network (NIN).

ANSR July GCC PRs 50DR+

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More than half of the cloud releases in the region (51%) were released after 2020, with 46 centers out of a total of 89 developed during that period. Other countries store their information in local government data centers or regional telecom-company data centers, which fall within the second and third tiers of the classifications.

In cases of dispute or sanctionsas in Syria and Yemenbarriers increase because of compliance limitations and damage to infrastructure. Cloud computing services are a model that makes it possible for "on-demand" access to shared computing resources (networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be quickly provisioned and launched with very little administrative effort.

a number of separate sites/data centers within the area, created to reduce single points of failure, with separation in power, cooling, physical security, and low-latency network connectivity. There are likewise layers of cloud services or service delivery models (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS) and deployment and usage designs (public/private/hybrid/ community), which are a fundamental part of understanding and examining risks and sovereignty over cloud service centers in the countries that host them.

ANSR July GCC PRs 50DR+

Data analytics and synthetic intelligence: cloud centers offer enormous computing and storage capability to run data analytics for states and federal governments, device knowing, and AI workloads that need specialized and large-scale hardware. This, for example, is one factor behind the race by information centers and AI to establish a presence in the Gulf and provide services there.

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This is the reasoning behind developing availability zones within an area, or throughout numerous regions when laws enable. The kind of cloud service use depends on each nation's policy and its data category, however the most typical patterns in the general public sector include: personal information, documents, residency records. taxes, custom-mades, and federal government procurement.

the Internet of Things, sensing, traffic, energy/water. frequently greatly restricted and isolated, or special/sovereign environments are built for it depending on category sensitivity. This is where the importance of deployment models (private/hybrid cloud)ends up being clear: many governments tend toward a hybrid approachpartly on a public cloud for less delicate work, and partially on a private/sovereign cloud for more delicate ones. The RUSI research institute states that the targeting of data centers in the Gulf on March 1, 2026 developed international doubts about the resilience, sovereignty, security, and fragility of these centers, noting that data centers may be treated as strategic assets and "crucial infrastructure,"especially if they are thought to support defense/intelligence capabilities along with civilian services. The threat is not just"losing files,"but digitally disabling and disabling states. It can be summarized in five points: Vital service failures (Accessibility Shock): If banks, payments, civil service platforms, or significant business depend on the impacted area, the disruption quickly affects the public and the economy. RUSI pointed to broader interruption to monetary and consumer services after the Gulf strikes. Fragility in the face of non-cloud bottlenecks: Even if data centers are not bombed, submarine cable televisions and worldwideconnectivity can trigger serious congestion/degradation in cloud services. Example: cuts to cables in the Red Sea impacted Azure paths and increased latency in South Asia and the Gulf. The cloud services market represents a big worldwide market, and costs on it is progressively increasing every year with the advancement and expansion of expert system services. Regionally, Gartner, the research study, consulting, and infotech firm, anticipates IT costs in the Middle East and North Africa to reach 169 billion dollars in 2026, and states that" information center systems"are the fastest-growing industry, approximated at 12.984 billion dollars in 2026. McKinsey, on the other hand, explains public cloud centers in the Middle East as a"multibillion-dollar chance" connected to digital transformation and onethat is highly scalable. This is either since they are variable consumption-based agreements, structure contracts, or part of wider procurement portfolios (digital improvement)that are not openly itemized. The following can be determined: According to a news report released by Arab News last year, the worth of government agreements in the ICT(Info and Communications Innovation)sector reached SAR 38 billion in 2024(approximately US$ 10.13 billion), with a concentrate on cloud computing and expert system as top priorities. In 2024, Amazon announced the construction of two cloud regions in Saudi Arabia at an expense exceeding US$ 5.3 billion. In the very same year, Oracle likewise revealed the launch of a 2nd public cloud region in Saudi Arabia to "reinforce the AI economy,"with a financial investment of US$ 1.5 billion. In March 2025, the Abu Dhabi government announced its goal of automating 100 %of federal government operations, supported by a financial investment of approximately AED 13 billion(US$ 3.54 billion)in digital infrastructure under the Digital Method 20252027, along with sovereign cloud arrangements with Microsoft and Core42. In November 2025, the state-owned business qnbn revealed the signing of a multi-year contract with Microsoft to provide cloud computing services focused on"accelerating digital transformation and expert system,"though the agreement's value was not divulged.