Following the recent announcement of its data centre plans for Africa, beginning with a 36MW data centre in Lagos, Bharti Airtel’s African unit has confirmed that it will develop a data centre in Nairobi.
Work on the Nairobi facility, with 7MW of IT capacity, will apparently follow ‘soon’ after Airtel breaks ground on the Nigerian facility in the coming weeks, according to current CEO Segun Ogunsanya.
That appears to be all the information we have at the moment, albeit construction takes about two years, so mid-2026 could see the Nairobi data centre operational. Earlier announcements suggested that the Lagos facility could be live in mid-2025.
We reported in December that the company had launched its data centre business,Nxtra Data Centres, in Africa. The Nxtra business already has a big presence in India.
The Data Centre Dynamics website says that the Lagos facility is the first of Nxtra'sfive planned hyperscale data centres on the continent. Following the Nairobi development, the company intends to develop smaller data centres at its mobile cable landing stations in Tanzania, DRC, and Gabon. Separate from Nxtra, Airtel Africa already has 40 edge data centres on the continent.
Quoted in ITWeb Africa, Ogunsanya said: “A rapid increase in data centre capacity is needed to support the growth potential of Africa’s digital economy. We’re proud to drive the future of Africa’s digital infrastructure, unlocking opportunities for businesses to grow and fuelling economic prosperity.”
