Amazon denies moving its regional operations from the UAE to Türkiye

Amazon Cloud Services (AWS) denied media reports that talked about transferring its regional operations from the United Arab Emirates to Türkiye, confirming the continued expansion of its business in the two countries.

Turkish media reported, citing unidentified sources, that major companies, especially in the field of technology and data centers, including Amazon, are preparing to move their regional operations from the Middle East to Istanbul due to geopolitical and security tensions in the region.

Amazon said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by CNN Arabic, that “reports indicating that Amazon is moving its regional operations from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul are inaccurate.” She added: “The UAE and Turkey remain priority countries for Amazon, and we continue to expand our business and invest in them.”

Last May, Amazon announced “the general availability of a new AWS Local Zone in Istanbul, to bring infrastructure closer to end users, while enabling organizations to meet the requirements for local data storage and backup.”

Amazon noted in its statement at the time that “AWS Local Zones are infrastructure deployments that extend core services, such as compute, storage, networking, and more, closer to urban areas around the world. They are available in more than 30 metropolitan areas around the world.”

On September 1, Amazon announced that “the first AWS cloud infrastructure region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will launch in December 2026.” She added that, in cooperation with the "Humin" company, owned by the Public Investment Fund, it will provide "a capacity of up to 50 megawatts in the first artificial intelligence zone in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by 2028."