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The rising number of data centres in Kenya is a great boost to the country’s ambitious plans to expand digital economy and enhance public service delivery.

Some of the major companies that have built data centres in the country include EADC Liquid, iColo, Africa Data Centre (ADC), COMTEC, Access, Safaricom, MTN Business, and Telkom Kenya.

These data centres enable mobile network providers, banks, internet service providers, retailers, and content providers to centralise their computing and networking equipment for collection, storage, processing, distribution, and access to large amounts of data.

ADC Managing Director for East Africa Dan Kwach noted that the firm will invest $200 million (Sh24.57 billion) to build three new data centres in the next 18 months. Two of these centres will be located in Nairobi and another in Kigali, Rwanda.

The growing number of data centres have pushed up the demand for electricity.

For instance, ADC’s data centre, which has a capacity of 800 racks, can consume 4MW at full capacity.  Mr Kwach said the data centre currently consumes 60 percent of its power capacity.

“We have acquired land next to our existing data centre to build a 20MW new data centre which will help us to meet the growing demand for our services. We will have a groundbreaking for the project early next year,” said Mr Kwach.

ADC data centres will have the capacity to consume up to 50MW at full use once the current expansion is complete.

The data centre is also connected to a 1MW solar plant to top up its grid power.

iColo, which has three data centres – one in Nairobi and two in Mombasa – says it also acquired a piece of land next to its facility in Nyali dubbed MBA2 to build a new data centre to expand its capacity.

iColo chief executive officer Ranjith Cherickel said its data centre in Nairobi can consume up to 10MW, and MBA2 in Nyali can use up to 1.6MW with the planned data centre expected to further raise its demand for power.

The company has installed solar of 700kilowatts (kW) and is planning to upgrade this capacity to reduce its power bills.

“We expect demand for data centre services to continue growing which is why we are readily positioning ourselves to provide these services with the new data centre that will be adjacent to this one (MBA2),” said Mr Cherickel.

Another firm Masinga Data is planning Sh6 billion green facility along Tana River in Masinga.

The Masinga Data Centre is being set up by US-based software firm Cloudoon Inc located in Delaware.

The race by technology firms to set up multi-billion-shilling power-draining data centres in Kenya gives a timely boost to the government’s efforts to grow local power consumption and potentially lower the burden of high electricity costs.