Atos, which describes itself as a global leader in digital transformation, is to build a new data centre in Kenya.
The data centre will be sited at the Mwale Medical and Technology City (MMTC) in Butere, Kakamega County, in the west of the country. Specifications of the facility weren’t made public, but it will reportedly be the largest in the region. The cost of the centre is expected to be about $260 million.
According to the website Data Centre Dynamics, the new data centre will be part of an artificial intelligence innovation district in the city and is expected to be complete by the end of 2022.
Construction work on MMTC began in 2014. It is being designed as a sustainable metropolis centred around a medical and technology complex and powered with renewable energy. The MMTC AI cluster is to be focused on healthcare and agriculture, according to news reports.
Atos plans to begin groundwork for the initial pilot phase of the data centre shortly. Installation of the artificial intelligence system will be completed by September.
The entire AI cluster will cost $1 billion and, it is hoped will serve other African projects, including Akon City, a smart city development in Senegal and Uganda.
Of course this is not the only data centre activity recently in Kenya. Last month data centre company icolo.io announced the construction of a new data centre in Mombasa, a coastal city in southeast Kenya.
MBA2 as it is known, is due to be completed in Q1 of 2022. The facility will have 1,200 square metres of floorspace and 1.6MW of capacity, and host more than 600 racks.
The facility is located on a greenfield site close to cable landing points in the city. MBA2 will be the company’s second in Mombasa, and third overall (it owns another in Nairobi).
Icolo.io is part of Digital Realty, a company that supports the data centre, colocation and interconnection strategies of customers across the world.