Over the past two years, Amazon Web Services Inc. has not been shy about opening new infrastructure around the world. The cloud computing giant launched regions in Korea, India and Canada in 2016. The following year saw AWS expansion to Hong Kong, France, Sweden and China. Missing from this picture was a key part of the map — the Middle East — and AWS has solved the issue by announcing a new region in Bahrain, scheduled to open in 2019.

The choice of Bahrain was a curious one. It has fewer oil resources than most of its Middle East neighbors, a population of only 1.5 million people, and major credit agencies downgraded its debt rating to junk status in 2016.

But the island nation did have one major advantage for AWS: The government had decided to move all 40 of its agencies to the cloud, becoming the first country to adopt a cloud-first policy in the region.

“We are betting on the cloud. We’re betting big on Amazon,” said Salman Al-Khalifa (pictured), vice-chief executive officer of Bahrain Information and Government Authority. “We’re not an oil-rich country. Our crown jewels are the citizens, and making them ready for the cloud is going to help us succeed.”

Al-Khalifa spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C. They discussed reasons for Bahrain’s decision to go cloud-first, the region’s nascent start-up culture, the country’s programs in support of entrepreneurs, and how AWS can help bring innovation to the nation’s healthcare system. (* Disclosure below.)

This week theCUBE features Salman Al-Khalifa as its Guest of the Week.

Migrating 700 servers

The motivation for Bahrain’s decision to go all-in on the delivery of government services via cloud reflected Al-Khalifa’s frustration with the constant need to swap outmoded information technology hardware and software for upgrades. It was a process that took a great deal of time and effort, since purchases had to be publicly evaluated and every change required a new contract.

Following the AWS announcement nine months ago, the government of Bahrain began the process of migrating 700 servers with over 50 terabytes of data to AWS. In May, the government announced that its sovereign wealth fund had been moved to AWS, closing the onsite and offsite data centers that had previously handled the company’s IT infrastructure.

“Seventy percent of our time is spent buying and installing and rebuying and reinstalling stuff,” Al-Khalifa said. “To buy anything takes six months, so you are constantly, every month, issuing tenders. You’re losing sight of what’s really important.”

Nurturing a startup culture

What’s important is innovation for Bahrain’s citizens, including the ability to foster the kind of startup culture that other nations have aggressively pursued. A rising middle-class and improved access to technology are already fostering entrepreneurship in Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

One shining example of start-up growth can be found in Careem Networks FZ, the Middle East’s version of Uber Technologies Inc. The Dubai-based ride sharing company is currently valued at $1.5 billion, and the news surfaced a few days ago that Uber had entered into preliminary merger talks.

“[Careem] is doing incredibly well, shockingly well,” Al-Khalifa said. “They are like the Cinderella story of the region.”

Bahrain has implemented its own programs to fuel a start-up ecosystem. These include the Economic Development Board to mentor business owners and Tamkeen, a labor fund.

“You’re going to see small [entrepreneurs] coming up with applications that will innovate the way they do business,” Al-Khalifa said. “We will see a lot more of that with the cloud.”

Expanding cloud services in Middle East

For Amazon, the establishment of a regional center in Bahrain is the continuation of its strategy to have more of an impact in the Middle East. Last year, the company announced plans to purchase the Arab world’s largest online retailer — Souq — for $580 million. AWS has also announced plans to open an edge network location in the UAE, bringing services such as CloudFront and Shield to the region.

In partnership with AWS, the government of Bahrain is pursuing initiatives to leverage its cloud capabilities and improve the delivery of healthcare services, according to Al-Khalifa. Healthcare is free for Bahrain citizens, and the country maintains a network that includes 20 state and private hospitals, in addition to clinics and maternity facilities.

“Healthcare is a big deal for us,” Al-Khalifa said. “Helping oncology departments identify cancer better, treat cancer better using technology, is the next frontier.”

Despite its partnership with Bahrain and newly established presence in the Middle East, AWS is not alone among cloud providers in this section of the world. Alibaba maintains a data center in Dubai, and Oracle Corp. plans to open cloud operations in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. Microsoft has announced plans to open its own centers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The cloud provider ecosystem is coming to the Middle East.

How many governments follow Bahrain’s lead in migrating the vast majority of its agency services to the cloud remains to be seen, but Al-Khalifa believes that the public sector will have no choice if it doesn’t want to lag behind.

“It’s not only the private sector that’s talking about moving to the cloud; it’s government,” Al-Khalifa said. “The world is changing, and if they’re not going to be on the cloud, they’re going to be left behind. It’s not a pipe dream; it’s reality.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit. (* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE