Microsoft’s first data center regions in the Middle East are now generally available

Microsoft today announced that its first data center regions in the Middle East are now online. The data centers are located in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and will offer local access to the usual suite of services, including Azure’s cloud computing services and Office 365. Support for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft’s Power Platform will arrive later this year.

“In our experience, local datacenter infrastructure supports and stimulates economic development for both customers and partners alike, enabling companies, governments and regulated industries to realize the benefits of the cloud for innovation and new projects, as well as bolstering the technology ecosystem that supports these projects,” Microsoft’s corporate VP Azure Global writes in today’s announcement. “We anticipate the cloud services delivered from UAE to have a positive impact on job creation, entrepreneurship and economic growth across the region.”

The company first announced these new regions last March. Back in 2017, Microsoft’s cloud rival, Amazon’s AWS, said it would offer a region in Bahrain in early 2019. This region is not online yet, but is still listed as “coming soon” on the service’s infrastructure map. Google currently has no data center presence in the Middle East and hasn’t announced any plans to change this.