Tatu City to Host 44MW Nxtra Data Centre, Set for 2027 Launch as East Africa’s Largest

Nxtra data centre, the data centre division of Airtel Africa, is developing a hyperscale facility in Tatu City, Nairobi, that is expected to go live in Q1 2027 and become East Africa’s largest data centre.

The project is being built with a planned capacity of 44 megawatts (MW), targeting high-density computing demand from enterprises and cloud service providers.

The $150 million (Sh19.4 billion) Nxtra by Airtel Africa investment is located within the Tatu City Special Economic Zone (SEZ), where construction began in September 2025. The facility is part of a wider push to expand data centre capacity across Africa, alongside a parallel build in Lagos, Nigeria.

44mw Hyperscale Facility Designed for Ai and Enterprise Demand

The Nxtra data centre is being developed as a hyperscale infrastructure hub designed for artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and enterprise workloads.

The facility will be delivered in two phases of 22MW each, giving it a total IT load capacity of 44MW once fully operational.

Key design features of the Nxtra data centre include:

• GPU-ready infrastructure for AI and machine learning workloads
• Target Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) below 1.4
• Redundant underground fibre connectivity to support high availability
• Engineering for next-generation high-density server environments

The project is structured to support increasing demand for hybrid cloud environments and compute-heavy applications across financial services, telecoms, and digital platforms.

Expansion of Enterprise and Broadband Services

The Nxtra data centre build is aligned with growth in both enterprise services and home broadband (HBB) across Airtel Africa’s markets.

Airtel Africa reports that its HBB customer base has grown by 86%, with average monthly usage per customer reaching 195GB. This growth has been supported by expanded fibre and 5G infrastructure, alongside improved onboarding through digital tools such as the MyAirtel app and integrated payment systems.

Enterprise services remain a central focus, with data centre infrastructure positioned as a key enabler for cloud adoption and digital transformation across business clients.

Strategic Role of Tatu City SEZ

The Nxtra hyperscale facility is being developed inside the Tatu City Special Economic Zone, which provides fiscal and regulatory incentives aimed at attracting large-scale technology investments.

These include:

• Corporate income tax reduced to 10% for the first 10 years
• VAT exemptions on construction materials and capital equipment
• Import duty waivers on specialised infrastructure hardware
• Reduced withholding tax on external service payments

These conditions are designed to support long-term infrastructure projects with high upfront capital requirements.

Growing Cloud and Data Infrastructure Ecosystem In Kenya

Kenya’s data infrastructure market is expanding through a mix of private and public cloud deployments.

Global providers have already established local infrastructure, including:

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which supports enterprise workloads and AI applications
• Amazon Web Services Local Zone, which provides low-latency cloud services for hybrid environments requiring single-digit millisecond response times

At the same time, government-led initiatives are advancing sovereign cloud capacity through the Konza Cloud Expansion within Konza Technopolis.