Kenya has recently embarked on building supported by two geothermal-powered data center projects. This unique approach redefines energy-efficiency in data centers in the country, can be considered as a new era in the technological front.
Earlier this year, EcoCloud, a sustainable data center provider, and tech investor G42 unveiled their groundbreaking plan to build a 1 Gigawatt geothermal data center. This starts at 100MW and can expand its capacity to a gigawatt, with Kenya’s abundant geothermal helping fuel a wide range of uses that extend from cloud computing to artificial intelligence. From this vision, its possible to meet the escalating demand for data storage in the region.
The trend progresses with the collaboration between Microsoft and G42 where the two firms unveiled a plan to invest one billion dollars in an altrogeothermal facility in Olkaria. This historical expenditure, considered the largest single private-sector digitization investment in Kenya, exemplifies the nation’s steady support for a sustainable and progressive technology advancement.
Microsoft and G42 are doing it in a manner that is not just limited to infrastructure. It plans to build local-language AI models, create an East Africa Innovation Lab, to extend Internet connectivity and work with the Kenyan government for secure cloud services in the whole of East region. This has multi-faceted approach shows a devotion to bring technology within the reach of local communities and small businesses, and more solidifies Kenya’s position as one of the leading tech hub in East Africa.
