Data centers in Kenya: 4 projects mapped

Kenya's headline data center project has run into the limits of its grid. In May 2024, during President William Ruto's state visit to Washington, Microsoft, the Abu Dhabi AI firm G42 and the Kenyan government signed a letter of intent for a $1 billion campus: a geothermal-powered site at KenGen's Green Energy Park at Olkaria, starting at 100 megawatts of power and growing toward 1 gigawatt, with a new Microsoft Azure region for East Africa promised within two years.

It did not happen on that timeline. In November 2025, Ruto said officials later told him the project would need 1,000 megawatts against a national supply of about 2,300: "For us to do the data centre, we have to shut down half the country." He disclosed daily evening power cuts to stabilize the grid, and in May 2026 said the project was suspended. Kenyan officials say it has not been abandoned; Ruto's new target is 10,000 megawatts of generation.

Smaller facilities have kept coming. Airtel's Nxtra broke ground in September 2025 on a $150 million, 44-megawatt campus in Tatu City outside Nairobi, now expected to finish in July 2027. iXAfrica's NBOX1 in Nairobi came online in early 2025 with 4.5 megawatts, hosting an Oracle cloud region. Until the Microsoft region is built, Kenyan businesses that need a local Azure region still rely on Microsoft's nearest one, in South Africa.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.