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Airtel Africa Plc, the pan-African telecommunications provider majority-owned by Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Bharti Airtel, has commenced the construction of a 44MW hyperscale Nxtra data center in Tatu City, a special economic zone on the outskirts of Nairobi.
The facility, among the biggest in East Africa, is to be delivered in two 22MW phases, hosting GPU-ready racks and next-generation servers with 99.999 percent uptime, multiple fiber routes, and advanced security systems.
Market backdrop and government support
The high-tech project facility is the second in Airtel Africa’s Nxtra rollout after Lagos, Nigeria, and is expected to be operational in early 2027. Airtel Kenya Managing Director Ashish Malhotra said the site will attract global tech firms, lower digital service costs, and support the adoption of artificial intelligence and cloud computing across East Africa.
William Kabogo, Kenya's ICT Cabinet Secretary, praised the move, stating that it supports the government's digital agenda to boost the nation's digital economy, localize data and increase broadband. Rapid internet penetration, cloud adoption, fintech growth, and IoT services are driving an increase in demand for data centers in East Africa.
Nairobi has become a hub, attracting high-profile investments like Microsoft's $1 billion partnership with G42 in Abu Dhabi to construct a green data center and Schneider Electric's partnership with iXAfrica to introduce the first hyper-cloud facility in East Africa.
The size and risks of an investment
The project is part of a broader push by telecom operators to generate revenue from networks through colocation and cloud services. In Nairobi, several hyperscale projects in the city are under development, thus intensifying competition and raising concerns about overcapacity.
Regulators and communities are also scrutinizing the water and energy consumption of large data centers, particularly those designed for AI workloads that require power-intensive GPU farms. But with the hyperscale Nxtra data center in Tatu City, Airtel plans to mitigate costs and sustainability risks by leveraging Tatu City’s renewable energy supply and special economic zone incentives.
Sunil Mittal’s global empire
Airtel Africa, dual-listed in London and Lagos, operates in 14 countries and serves over 150 million subscribers. The company has also built out subsea and terrestrial fiber networks through Airtel Telesonic to connect its data centers to global internet routes.
Mittal, whose Bharti Enterprises controls Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel Ltd. and satellite operator OneWeb, has a net worth of more than $27 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The Nxtra expansion shows Airtel Africa's sustained interest in Africa's digital infrastructure. The move highlights the company's push to capture growth from rising demand for data and expand beyond telecommunications into digital services.
