Oracle has selected iXAfrica Data Centres as its colocation partner for a new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) public cloud region in Nairobi, a move that positions Kenya among a small but growing group of African markets hosting hyperscale cloud capacity onshore.
The deployment, first announced by William Ruto in early 2024 and now moving firmly into execution, reflects rising demand from governments and enterprises for low-latency, compliant cloud services delivered within national borders. For Oracle, the decision underscores a broader recalibration of cloud strategy in emerging markets: prioritizing execution-ready infrastructure over long-dated capacity plans.
Oracle’s selection of iXAfrica reflects its technical and operational preparation. iXAfrica’s Nairobi campus, designed to global cloud standards, with carrier-neutral connectivity, resilient power architecture, and high-density compute capability, has emerged as a leading asset to support immediate public cloud deployment at scale.
“We are delighted to be in execution mode to bring OCI to Kenya,” said Snehar Shah, Chief Executive of iXAfrica. “This collaboration allows us to leverage Kenya’s renewable energy potential, talent base, and growing national and international connectivity.”
For Kenyan enterprises and public institutions, the implications extend beyond cloud availability. Hosting OCI locally allows organizations to run latency-sensitive and mission-critical workloads closer to users, while addressing data sovereignty, regulatory compliance, and resilience concerns that have long constrained digital transformation efforts. In sectors such as financial services, government, healthcare, and logistics, proximity to cloud infrastructure increasingly determines what can be built—and how reliably it can operate.
“Around the world, governments and enterprises rely on OCI for its security, scalability, and ability to run mission-critical workloads that enable innovation at scale,” said David Bunei, Oracle’s Country Leader for Kenya. “Our collaboration with iXAfrica will further support the growth of Kenya’s digital economy.”
The partnership also reframes competition in Africa’s cloud market. Rather than racing to announce future regions, global providers are beginning to favor markets where power, connectivity, and regulatory alignment converge. Kenya’s advantage lies not only in demand growth, but in execution readiness: access to renewable energy, expanding fiber and subsea connectivity, and a policy environment increasingly attuned to digital infrastructure as an economic asset.
