{"id":34683,"date":"2026-05-11T14:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/34683\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T14:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:08:11","slug":"disputes-delay-microsofts-1-billion-african-data-center-project-a-setback-for-cloud-expansion-in-kenya-etenterpriseai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/34683\/","title":{"rendered":"Disputes Delay Microsoft&#8217;s $1 Billion African Data Center Project: A Setback for Cloud Expansion in Kenya, ETEnterpriseai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"590\" height=\"442\" class=\"unveil\" loading=\"eager\" style=\"width:100%;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/131009961.cms.png\" captionrendered=\"1\" alt=\"&lt;p&gt;The project was announced during Kenyan President William Ruto's state visit to Washington under the Biden administration.&lt;\/p&gt;\"\/>The project was announced during Kenyan President William Ruto&#8217;s state visit to Washington under the Biden administration.A <a id=\"30571344\" type=\"General\" weightage=\"20\" keywordseo=\"Microsoft-data-center\" source=\"keywords\" class=\"news-keywords\" href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseai.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/microsoft+data+center\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft data center<\/a> site in East Africa has been delayed by disagreements with the Kenyan government over the company&#8217;s request for guaranteed payments, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday citing people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n<p> In May 2024, Microsoft partnered with UAE-based \u200cAI firm \u2060G42 \u2060to invest $1 billion in a data center in Kenya as part of its efforts to expand cloud-computing services in East Africa. The project was announced during <a id=\"20894158\" type=\"General\" weightage=\"20\" keywordseo=\"Kenyan-President-William-Ruto\" source=\"keywords\" class=\"news-keywords\" href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseai.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/tag\/kenyan+president+william+ruto\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kenyan President William Ruto<\/a>&#8216;s state visit to Washington under the Biden administration. <\/p>\n<p> The facility was set to run entirely on geothermal \u2060power as \u200cwell as provide access to Microsoft&#8217;s Azure through a cloud region for East Africa.<\/p>\n<p> Microsoft and G42 \u2060asked the Kenyan government to commit to paying for a certain amount of capacity annually, but the talks broke down when it couldn&#8217;t provide the guarantees at the level Microsoft requested, the Bloomberg report said.<\/p>\n<p>The Bloomberg report added that the group might ultimately decide to scale back the project.<\/p>\n<p>Kenya is \u200cmoving ahead with the talks, and &#8220;it is not failed or withdrawn,&#8221; Bloomberg quoted principal secretary at Kenya&#8217;s Ministry of Information \u2060John Tanui as saying in an interview.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;The scale of the data center they wanted to do still requires some structuring,&#8221; he said, adding that power requirements are still under discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft, G42, and Kenya&#8217;s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify the Bloomberg report.\n                                                                    <\/p>\n<p>                                    Published On May 11, 2026 at 02:59 PM IST<\/p>\n<p>\n                Join the community of 2M+ industry professionals.<br \/>\n                Subscribe to Newsletter to get latest insights &amp; analysis in your inbox.\n            <\/p>\n<p>            Get updates on your preferred social platform<br \/>\n            Follow us for the latest news, insider access to events and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The project was announced during Kenyan President William Ruto&#8217;s state visit to Washington under the Biden administration.A Microsoft&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[420,7829,22121,19406,22116,22119,22120,22117,22122,8380,320,7828,22115,22118],"class_list":["post-34683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-microsoft","tag-azure","tag-azure-ai","tag-azure-cloud-services","tag-data-center-investment","tag-east-africa-cloud-computing","tag-g42-partnership","tag-geothermal-power-data-center","tag-kenya-government-negotiations","tag-kenyan-president-william-ruto","tag-making-ai-work","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-ai","tag-microsoft-data-center","tag-payment-guarantees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}