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Amazon Web Services Announces Its Plans To Open A Data Center In UAE
The company is also investing in local education initiatives and training programs to nurture the latent it needs to support its expansion.
Determined to strengthen its global infrastructure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms, has just announced its plans to open a new data center in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the first half of 2022.
AWS currently has 80 Availability Zones across 25 geographic Regions. Once opened, the UAE data center will become AWS’s second Region in the Middle East, along with an existing in Bahrain.
“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 at AWS.
In addition to enabling e local customers with data residency requirements to keep their data inside the UAE, the new Region will also ensure low latency across the country when using Amazon’s growing suite of cloud services, which includes everything from storage to computer to analytics.
The UAE has been heavily focusing on becoming a thriving global hub for entrepreneurs and global enterprises alike by promoting technology innovation, and the new AWS Region will put it one step closer to achieving its goal.
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“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,” said His Excellency Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development.
In the near future, Amazon Web Services would like to launch 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Australia, India, Indonesia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates. The company is also investing in local education initiatives and training programs to nurture the latent it needs to support its expansion.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
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