Digital Realty Adds 6.4MW Data Centre Capacity in Kenya

Digital Realty has opened a new 6.4MW data centre in Nairobi, increasing capacity at its local campus to more than 14MW as demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence and digital services grows across East Africa. The company launched Nairobi Two (NBO2) on 7 September, adding a second facility alongside its existing Nairobi One (NBO1). The two sites are about 300 metres apart and are connected, allowing customers to distribute critical workloads across separate facilities.

NBO2 also gives customers access to more than 100 networks, two internet exchange points and a satellite teleport. The infrastructure is designed to support cloud providers, enterprises, financial institutions, telecommunications operators and other businesses that require connectivity to regional and international digital services.

Nairobi Data Centre Capacity

NBO2 adds 6.4MW of capacity to Digital Realty’s Nairobi operations, bringing the campus above 14MW. The facility is connected to more than 100 networks, two internet exchange points and a satellite teleport, giving customers access to a wider range of connectivity providers from the Nairobi site.

The new facility comes as data centre operators face growing demand from cloud adoption, enterprise digitisation and data-intensive applications. Artificial intelligence is adding further pressure on available computing infrastructure because AI workloads require significantly more processing capacity than many traditional applications.

Digital Realty has not disclosed how much of NBO2’s 6.4MW capacity has already been contracted. The company says the facility expands its capacity and interconnection footprint in one of East Africa’s key digital infrastructure markets.

Kenya Seeks More Capacity

Kenya’s government is already looking beyond the latest expansion.

John Tanui, Principal Secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy, called on Digital Realty to consider increasing capacity at the Nairobi campus to 20MW. He cited expected demand from artificial intelligence and other data-intensive workloads.

Tanui’s comments demonstrate the government’s effort to attract further investment into Kenya’s digital infrastructure as more technology companies and cloud services require local capacity.

Nairobi benefits from its fibre connectivity, submarine cable links and growing network of data centres. Those connections make the city an important location for companies that need to exchange data between Kenya, other African markets and international cloud platforms.

iColo Moves Under Digital Realty

The NBO2 launch also marks the completion of iColo’s transition to the Digital Realty brand in Kenya and Mozambique.

Digital Realty acquired a majority stake in iColo in 2019. The local operator had built a carrier-neutral data centre business in Kenya, including NBO1, before becoming part of Digital Realty’s wider global platform.

With the transition, customers using the Kenyan and Mozambican facilities will operate within Digital Realty’s broader PlatformDIGITAL network. The company says this gives local customers access to its wider ecosystem of carriers, cloud providers, content companies and enterprises.

For Nairobi, the expansion adds more than physical server capacity. The combination of NBO1, NBO2 and the wider network ecosystem gives businesses more options for hosting workloads, connecting to cloud platforms and managing data within Kenya.

With the campus now above 14MW and the government calling for a further expansion to 20MW, the next question is how quickly demand from cloud, AI and other digital workloads absorbs the additional capacity.