digital Realty has opened its 6.4MW Nairobi Two (NBO2) data centre in Karen, with Kenya's ICT and Digital Economy principal secretary John Tanui calling on the company to consider expanding capacity to 20MW.
The facility is about 300 metres from the existing Nairobi One (NBO1) site, and the two are now linked, allowing customers to distribute critical workloads across separate buildings while maintaining operational continuity.
Tanui said anticipated demand for artificial intelligence and other data-intensive workloads would drive the need for additional capacity. He said Kenya was well positioned to benefit from that growth because of its fibre connectivity, subsea cable landings and cloud infrastructure.
The opening also marks the formal transition of iColo, the carrier-neutral data centre operator in which Digital Realty acquired a majority stake in 2019, into the Digital Realty brand across its Kenyan and Mozambican operations.
iColo's local ecosystem is now being incorporated into Digital Realty's global PlatformDIGITAL network.
Digital Realty is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DLR and describes itself as the world's largest cloud- and carrier-neutral data centre platform. It said NBO2 expands its capacity and interconnection footprint in Kenya.
Customers at the Nairobi campus can connect to more than 100 networks, two internet exchange points and a satellite teleport.
The site supports connectivity for content delivery, cross-border traffic and data sovereignty requirements. The satellite teleport provides an additional route to locations where terrestrial infrastructure is limited, according to Digital Realty.
"The opening of NBO2 and our transition to Digital Realty are part of one story: the continued growth of Kenya's digital economy and iColo's evolution within a global platform," said Wanja Muriithi, country general manager for Kenya at iColo: A Digital Realty Company.
She added: "By connecting Nairobi Two with Nairobi One, which is across the road, we have also strengthened the resilience available to customers, enabling them to deploy critical workloads across separate facilities while maintaining the operational continuity that modern businesses require."
Muriithi said combining Digital Realty's global brand with iColo's existing local ecosystem gives customers in Kenya the ability to connect with carriers, cloud providers, content companies and enterprises.
Speaking at the facility's commissioning, Tanui urged Digital Realty to consider expanding capacity to 20MW, citing expected demand from artificial intelligence and other data-intensive workloads.
The expansion comes as cloud adoption, enterprise digitisation and data sovereignty requirements drive investment in data centre infrastructure across East Africa. ITWeb has previously reported on iColo's role as a carrier-neutral connectivity hub in Nairobi, including the expansion of network infrastructure at its NBO1 facility.
ITWeb has also reported on Digital Realty's wider African expansion strategy and its investments in regional data centre operators, including iColo in Kenya and Mozambique and Teraco in South Africa.
Digital Realty has not disclosed how much of NBO2's 6.4MW is already contracted or how quickly the facility is expected to reach full utilisation. NBO2 is certified to ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS stadards, according to Digital Realty.
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