Airtel Africa has announced plans to build a data centre in Nairobi, its second in the continent after Nigeria.
The telco said the Nairobi data centre, which will serve telecoms and other sectors, will have a capacity of seven megawatts.
“We will break ground in Nigeria in the next couple of weeks and the one in Kenya will follow soon. Construction takes about two years, so we’re looking at them coming into operation probably sometime in mid-year 2026.’’ Airtel Africa’s Group CEO, Segun Ogunsanya said.
The facilities will be constructed under the company’s new data centre business known as Nxtra.
Airtel Africa launched Nxtra in December last year in what it said was to meet the continent’s growing needs for trusted, and sustainable data centre capacity and to serve the fast-growing African digital economy.
“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. ” Mr Ogunsanya said during the launch
Nxtra aims to build five data centers in major cities located strategically across Airtel Africa’s footprints expanding its presence in the continent’s data center ecosystem. The company says this will be one of the largest networks of data centres in Africa with high-capacity data centres.
Airtel Africa said that these facilities will meet stringent global security requirements and meet ‘five nines’1 availability. Coupled with Airtel Africa’s extensive fibre footprint, Nxtra will also offer secure and scalable integrated solutions to global hyper-scalers, large African enterprises, startups, SMEs and governments.
To deliver on Nxtra’s vision, Airtel Africa appointed Yashnath Issur, the former head of Global Data Centre Portfolio Management at Amazon Web Services, as CEO of Nxtra by Airtel.
Mr Ogunsanya described the the two planned data centres in Nigeria and Kenya as key stars in Airtel Africa’s portfolio adding that they are going to be commercially operated.
Airtel Africa also recently announced the launch of a new fibre bandwidth service to provide data connectivity across Africa.
Known as Airtel Africa Telesonic Limited (‘Telesonic’), Airtel said the service fibre bandwidth service, leverages ground fibre assets and submarine cable systems to meet the growing demand for wholesale data in Africa by offering comprehensive terrestrial fibre and submarine cable solutions.
Follow us on Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook, or subscribe to our weekly newsletter to ensure you don’t miss out on any future updates. Send tips to info@techtrendske.co.ke
