Annual Review · 2026 Edition
State of Kenyan Data Centres 2026
The first edition of our annual review, every figure below is drawn live from our DC Directory — 27 Kenyan facilities plus 4 East African reference records — on the day you read this page, which is why this review never goes stale. Scope, sources and confidence tiers are documented in our data methodology.
Dataset last verified: 2026-09 · Cross-checked against the PeeringDB Kenya register (fetched 8 Sep 2026)
Prefer the brief? Download the PDF edition
Brief / 01, 4 pages, a cover, two infographics, dated sources. Free, no signup wall.
27
Facilities tracked
20 operational in Kenya
10.5 MW
Live IT load (published)
sum of operator-published IT load
42.9 MW
Built capacity (published)
designed capacity of live sites
230 MW
Announced pipeline
UC + committed + early stage
The supply pipeline, honestly staged
Kenya's market is routinely described with a single inflated number that blends live capacity with press releases. We keep the stages separate, because “announced” and “operating” are different universes:
Operational· 20 facilities
42.9 MWBuilt and in service. Capacity shown is designed facility capacity where the operator publishes it, commissioned IT load is tracked separately and is lower.
Under Construction· 3 facilities
77.0 MWFinanced and physically underway. Completion dates shown are operator statements; none are independently confirmed until they open.
Committed· 1 facility
53.0 MWLand secured and funding in place, pre-build. These projects are real intent, not yet real capacity.
Early Stage· 3 facilities
100.0 MWAnnounced interest, from a national AI campus to an operator's entry signal. Tracked so the market's direction is visible, never counted as capacity.
The interconnection league table
In a market where almost everyone claims “Tier III”, the number that actually differentiates buildings is networks present. This is the PeeringDB-registered hierarchy on the day of verification:
| # | Facility | City | Networks | IXs on site |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Africa Data Centres Nairobi 1 (NBO1)Africa Data Centres | Nairobi | 122 | 4 |
| 2 | iColo Mombasa One (MBA1)iColo (Digital Realty) | Mombasa | 94 | 3 |
| 3 | iColo Nairobi One (NBO1)iColo (Digital Realty) | Nairobi | 62 | 4 |
| 4 | iXAfrica NBOX1iXAfrica Data Centres | Nairobi | 44 | 3 |
| 5 | iColo Mombasa Two (MBA2)iColo (Digital Realty) | Mombasa | 40 | 3 |
| 6 | PAIX Nairobi (NBO-1)PAIX Data Centres | Nairobi | 37 | 3 |
| 7 | SEACOM Mombasa Cable Landing StationSEACOM | Mombasa | 31 | 0 |
| 8 | Telkom Kenya: Telephone House (Mombasa)Telkom Kenya | Mombasa | 9 | 0 |
8 of 20 operating Kenyan facilities are genuinely carrier-neutral. Register fetched 8 Sep 2026, community-maintained, so treat as a floor, not a ceiling.
Certification, read precisely
Most Kenyan marketing says “Tier III standards”, a design claim, not a third-party certification. The facilities with the strongest formal records this year:
- Safaricom Red Hill (Limuru), Uptime Tier III Design + Tier III Certification of Constructed Facility (26 Mar 2024): the strongest record of any commercial operator facility in Kenya.
- Konza National Data Centre, Uptime Tier III Constructed Facility (23 Aug 2022) + Design (13 Feb 2020): the government flagship's formal record.
- Africa Data Centres NBO1, operator states four data halls certified Uptime Tier 3, plus PCI DSS; Uptime's registry still files the building under legacy Liquid Telecom Group.
- iColo campus, ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS on the Digital Realty listings; no Uptime Tier certification published.
- iXAfrica NBOX1, no Uptime record; “Tier III standard” is an operator design statement. Excellent facilities can be uncertified, but they should be priced differently.
TCDD = drawings reviewed · TCCF = finished building inspected · TCOS = operations assessed. Full explainer in the methodology.
The pipeline to watch
7 projects sit behind the operating fleet. The ones that will define 2027:
18 MW announced · iXAfrica Data Centres
15 MW announced · Africa Data Centres
44 MW announced · Nxtra by Airtel
53 MW announced · iXAfrica Data Centres
100 MW announced · Safaricom
capacity undisclosed · Raxio Data Centres
capacity undisclosed · Kenya Data Centres (ICT Authority)
What changed in 2026
- Digital Realty launched NBO2 (7 Sep 2026), iColo's second Karen building formally opened with state backing; still ramping on interconnection (2 networks registered). The year's biggest capacity event.
- Oracle chose iXAfrica (27 Jan 2026), the OCI Nairobi region announcement is Kenya's first hyperscale-cloud-on-local-soil transaction, and the template for the inference edge.
- The G2M fibre route went live, Paratus's 2,000 km Goma–Mombasa artery added east-west terrestrial diversity to a corridor that needed it.
- EU money kept flowing, the EUR 102m EU-Kenya Digital Partnership and the DIF/Xalam country briefs keep Europe positioned as the market's enabler-of-record.
- The power ceiling held, the Microsoft–G42 project remains stalled on grid delivery at single-site scale, the market's clearest reminder that megawatts, not ambitions, are the currency.
The 2027 question
The published forecasts bracket Kenya's trajectory tightly: Xalam projects roughly 30% annual colocation growth through 2030; Ken Research's July 2026 report tracks commissioned IT load from 20 MW (2025) toward 90 MW (2031). Reconciling those with the verified base, 10.5 MW of published live IT load and 77 MW under construction, the decisive variable is not demand. It is whether power delivery and financing let the under-construction and committed stages convert on schedule. Watch four events in 2027: NBOX1.2's completion, the first hyperscaler cloud region going live, the Microsoft–G42 site decision, and NBO2's interconnection count. Everything else is commentary.
Sources & verification
Facility data: operator primary pages, the PeeringDB facility register (fetched 8 Sep 2026), Uptime Institute's public certification directory, and credible trade press, per-facility sources are listed on each directory entry. Market context: Xalam Analytics via the EU Digital Investment Facility country briefs; Ken Research's Kenya Data Center Market 2019–2030 (July 2026). This page re-computes from the live dataset on every visit, if a number moves, so does the review.