Nairobi Adds 6.4MW As Icolo Becomes Digital Realty
General
Published: 2026-09-09T20:27:53 · Updated: 2026-09-09T18:27:53Z
The launch completes iColo's rebrand and brings Kenya's largest data centre campus into a global network for the first time.
Digital Realty opened Nairobi Two (NBO2) in Karen on September 9, a 6.4-megawatt facility that sits roughly 300 metres from Nairobi One, the carrier-neutral data centre iColo originally opened in 2019. The two buildings now form a campus where customers can run critical workloads across separate sites while maintaining connectivity between them.
The opening also completes the transition of iColo to the Digital Realty brand across Kenya and Mozambique, bringing both markets into the New York-listed company's global network. Digital Realty describes itself as the world's largest cloud and carrier-neutral data centre operator.
What NBO2 Actually Offers
The facility connects to more than 100 networks, two internet exchange points, and a satellite teleport. For a data centre, that network density matters as much as physical capacity. A bank, cloud provider, or ISP choosing a colocation facility is largely asking one question: how many other networks and services can it reach without leaving the building?
The Nairobi campus also has room to expand. A three-facility master plan with a captive substation has been reported, which would take the campus beyond 20 megawatts at full build and place it among the region's larger single-site concentrations of data centre infrastructure.
Country General Manager Wanja Muriithi said the new facility adds high-density capacity for enterprises, cloud providers, networks and digital platforms, and that Kenya's renewable-heavy electricity grid positions it well for growing AI infrastructure demand.
The Policy Story Running Alongside the Launch
The launch doubled as a government showcase, with Kenya using the event to promote a set of recent regulatory changes. The government attributed the Digital Realty investment partly to reforms including the removal of local shareholding requirements for ICT investments, changes to taxes affecting digital exports, the Kenya Cloud Policy, and the National AI Strategy 2025 to 2030.
The ownership requirement change is the most significant of those. Removing it means foreign technology operators can now own their Kenyan entities outright. That's a different position from several other African markets, including South Africa, where a 30% historically disadvantaged ownership requirement has complicated licensing discussions for companies like Starlink.
Kenya is now using Digital Realty's investment as a reference point for that policy environment.
The government also announced it will issue guidelines identifying priority locations for future data centre investment, covering power availability, fibre connectivity, land, water, security, skills and investment facilitation.
Who Was in the Room
Principal Secretary for ICT John Tanui cut the ribbon. Also present were US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Frank Garcia, US Embassy Chargé d'Affaires Susan M. Burns, Communications Authority Director-General David Mugonyi, Data Protection Deputy Commissioner John Walubengo, and Digital Realty's Africa Managing Director Marcel Louw.
The combination of American diplomatic representation, communications regulators, and data protection officials in one room reflects the range of interests a major data centre investment touches: foreign capital, digital sovereignty, and infrastructure policy all at once.
What to Watch Next
Three things will show whether NBO2 delivers on its promise. First, which cloud providers and regulated institutions actually take capacity in the new building. Second, whether the Nairobi campus proceeds to a third facility and the captive substation. Third, whether the government's promised data centre location guidelines arrive and carry enough specificity to be useful.
The megawatts are in place. The workloads that fill them will determine what this investment actually means for Kenya's digital infrastructure.
Source: TechArena Kenya