Nairobi-based IXAfrica Data Centres and Schneider Electric have launched what they say is the first AI-ready hyperscale data centre in Kenya, and the largest such data centre in all of East Africa.
According to media reports, Schneider Electric said in a statement that the new facility, labelled ‘NBOX1’, is a Tier 3+ carrier-neutral data centre capable of supporting advanced AI applications. The statement said that NBOX1 is “the largest and most technologically advanced digital habitat for cloud, colocation, and connectivity in East Africa”.
A LinkedIn post from IXAfrica Data Centres says NBOX, located at its 4.3-acre IXAfrica Nairobi Campus, sports 4.5MW of IT power. The data centre features 780 racks in three data halls, with 4,000 square metres of teleport space.
The facility is supported by Schneider Electric’s ‘EcoStruxure for Data Centres’ architecture and solutions, which Schneider says provides NBOX1 with “resilience, uptime and cost efficiency, enhanced security, and the ability to meet IXAfrica’s sustainability objectives.”
Schneider also said the power train for the facility is based around its MV and LV switchgear to offer “stable and reliable cloud services renewably powered by Kenya’s grid.”
“The solutions provided by Schneider Electric are engineered to support N+1 redundancy with four independent power trains, meeting IXAfrica’s immediate and long-term objectives, including design 1.25 PUE across the campus, as well as a 99.999% uptime guarantee,” said Ifeanyi Odoh, Schneider Electric’s country president in East Africa, in a statement.
IXAfrica CEO Snehar Shah noted that the Nairobi campus site “is built on land formerly part of Schneider’s complex, and the power engineering for the site was designed by Schneider’s local partners.”
IXAfrica Nairobi Campus One has been in the works since early 2021, backed by a US$50 million capital investment from investment firm Helios. In August last year, IXAfrica said it signed a deal with real estate developer Tilisi Developments to purchase 11 acres of prime land to build a second data centre campus in Nairobi.
Shah also touted Kenya’s role as a digital technology epicentre for East Africa, serving a regional population of over 300 million people and supporting an innovation ecosystem that includes a skilled workforce, cloud and content providers, and colocation and connectivity services.
“Kenya is a hypercloud-ready region with advanced cloud adoption propensities, a digitally savvy environment, access to diverse internet fibre connectivity, high availability, and low-carbon power sources,” Shah said. “All of this takes place in a country with a stable regulatory and political climate, as well as a strong economy expected to grow by 5.2% in 2024.”
In May this year, Microsoft and AI-focused UAE-based technology group G42 announced a comprehensive package of digital investments in Kenya as part of an initiative with the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy. With an initial investment of US$1 billion from G42, the package includes a green data centre built by G42 and its partners in Olkaria that will run on and provide access to Microsoft Azure through a new East Africa Cloud Region.
