Safaricom said on Tuesday it has entered into a strategic partnership with Kenya’s iXAfrica Data Centres to offer services leveraging the new NBOX1 hyperscale data centre in Nairobi to enterprise and cloud solutions clients.
The first phase of the NBOX1 facility – which was launched in February 2025 – houses 780 racks and features 4.5MW of IT capacity. It’s also part of a larger 22.5MW campus.
According to Safaricom, the new partnership with iXAfrica includes a collaborative go-to-market strategy, dedicated enterprise and cloud suites starting at 350kW with scalability to over 1MW, and integrated connectivity solutions that leverage both companies’ strengths to serve businesses across East Africa.
Safaricom said its end-to-end enterprise solution offers an integrated infrastructure stack from colocation (2U+) to connectivity, from cloud to managed services, cybersecurity and business resilience.
Safaricom’s partnership with iXAfrica will enable enterprises and businesses to use NBOX1 to run advanced workloads and AI in Kenya, ensuring data sovereignty, compliance and speed, said Safaricom CEO Dr Peter Ndegwa.
“As East Africa’s digital economy continues its rapid expansion, businesses increasingly require robust, scalable and secure infrastructure solutions that can support the next wave of innovation, including AI workloads,” he said in a statement.
iXAfrica has billed NBOX1 as the first hyperscale data centre in East Africa optimized for AI-driven workloads.
“By combining our purpose-built, world-class AI-ready infrastructure with Safaricom’s unparalleled market presence and customer relationships, we’re creating a digital ecosystem that will accelerate innovation and growth across the region,” said iXAfrica chairman Guy Willner.
iXAfrica is currently developing two more data centre facilities in Nairobi: NBOX1.2, with a designed IT capacity of 18MW, and the 11-acre NBOX2 Tilisi campus, which will provide 53MW of capacity.
