Oracle, which already has a cloud presence on the continent, has announced plans to establish a new public cloud region in Nairobi.
Oracle says it will be taking advantage of Kenya’s renewable energy and digital infrastructure, including submarine and national connectivity.
The company says the move is part of what is described as a wider strategy to expand its cloud infrastructure across the continent. It’s early days yet, of course. This is only Oracle’s second cloud region in Africa; the first, in Johannesburg, opened in January 2022.
Underlining the significance of the move, the investment was announced during a meeting between an Oracle delegation and Kenyan ministers, including the president, William Ruto, who confirmed that the country’s government will continue to facilitate tech companies seeking to set up their footprints in Africa.
He also highlighted the government’s strategy to lay 100,000 kilometres of optical fibre, provide digital jobs and digitise government services and added that Kenya continues to be "a prime destination for international IT companies".
Though not, perhaps, as much as South Africa, where, as we reported earlier today, Google has launched its first African cloud region in Johannesburg. Microsoft Azure and AWS already have cloud regions in South Africa.