Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a new cloud region in the UAE.

“The AWS Region in the United Arab Emirates is now open,” the company said this week. “The official name is Middle East (UAE), and the API name is me-central-1. You can start using it today to deploy workloads and store your data in the United Arab Emirates.”

First announced in 2021, the site was due to go live in the first half of 2022. As with most regions, UAE opens with three availability zones. The company hasn’t detailed where the data centers for the new region are located.

This is the second region the company has opened in the Middle East, following the opening of a region in Bahrain in 2019. The company is also developing another region in Israel.

With this launch, AWS now operates 87 Availability Zones across 27 geographic Regions around the world. The company has plans for 21 more availability zones and seven more AWS Regions in Melbourne, Australia; Calgary, Canada; Hyderabad, India; Tel Aviv Israel; Auckland, New Zealand; Spain; and Zurich, Switzerland.

Microsoft has Middle Eastern Azure regions in Qatar that opened earlier this month and a Dubai region in the UAE launched in 2019. Its Abu Dhabi region, launched at the same time as Dubai, has since been de-listed and may have been converted into a reserved access zone. The company is also working on developing a cloud region in Israel.

Google is developing regions in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.

Oracle opened its first UAE cloud region in Dubai in 2020, after opening a facility in partnership with local telco Etisalat the year before. The company now has four of six planned cloud facilities open in the Middle East; two in the UAE and one each in Saudi Arabia and Israel. The company plans to open second facilities in both countries, and recently signed an MoU to become a tenant in SA’s new Neom city.