Kenyan President William Ruto recently stated that powering Microsoft’s upcoming data centre could demand more electricity than the entire nation can spare. “We would need to switch off half the country for the data centre to be powered,” Ruto remarked at a state event in Nairobi. According to a Bloomberg report, the ambitious $1 billion project—intended to bring major cloud computing capacity to East Africa—has been delayed after negotiations between Microsoft, its partner G42, and the Kenyan government broke down over financial and power issues. While officials confirm the project is not abandoned, its future remains uncertain.
What Went Wrong
The deal, announced in 2024, envisioned a large geothermal-powered data centre that would dramatically expand cloud computing across the region. As per the report, Microsoft and its partner, Abu Dhabi-based technology conglomerate G42, had requested the Kenyan government to commit to paying for a guaranteed amount of capacity each year. When the government could not provide guarantees at the level Microsoft required, the talks collapsed, according to sources familiar with the matter.
John Tanui, principal secretary at Kenya’s Ministry of Information, pushed back on the idea that the project had failed. “It is not failed or withdrawn,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “The scale of the data centre they wanted to do still requires some structuring.” He added that power requirements are still being worked out.
President Ruto’s technology envoy, Philip Thigo, also clarified the president’s remarks. “Ruto’s point has not been that the project was suspended, but that Kenya must confront the scale of energy required to support next-generation digital infrastructure,” Thigo said in an emailed statement to the publication.
Microsoft Called Data Centre in Kenya ‘Single Biggest Step to Advance Digital Tech Availability’
Microsoft president Brad Smith has previously called the proposed project the “single biggest step to advance the availability of digital technology” in Kenya’s history. The stakes go beyond Microsoft and Kenya. The project was the first planned joint venture between Microsoft and G42 after Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in the UAE-based company. Before that investment, G42 had agreed to remove Chinese equipment from its systems and divest from Chinese holdings.
Analysts say a failure to complete the project would hurt G42’s ambitions to expand globally as a credible AI provider and would weaken the United Arab Emirates’ role as a bridge between American technology companies and emerging markets.
