The government is seeking investors to expand the infrastructure for data storage and processing capacity of the Konza Data Centre through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) deal.
The PPP unit of the National Treasury approved the project proposal dubbed Konza Data Centre Cloud and Smart City Facilities Expansion last month paving the way for progression to the feasibility stage.
Konza Data Centre is key to meeting growing need for cloud computing services across both public and private institutions, placing it at the centre of Kenya’s fast-growing digital economy.
Konza Technopolis, the procuring entity, has not disclosed the estimated cost of the project. The Exchequer has been footing the cost of the project and allocated Sh3.1 billion for smart cities and the data centre in the current financial year.
“The project entails increasing data storage and processing capacity through expansion of the server infrastructure to accommodate growing demand of businesses, government agencies and international clients and enhancement of cloud computing capabilities to support enterprises, fintech and start-ups,” the PPP Directorate says in disclosures on the project.
The PPP-funded expansion of the Konza Data Centre marks yet another big project where the government has opted for investors to fund and avoid burdening the Exchequer.
Such centres have various uses including cloud computing and data storage. Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computing resources over the internet. It eliminates the need for businesses or individuals to physically self -manage the resources.
A deepening digital economy has made it critical for high capacity cloud computing services with data centres such as the State-owned Konza Data Centre and private ones critical to this shift.
iXAfrica, Africa Data Centres, PAIX Data Centres, Safaricom and Digital Realty are some of the major players in Kenya’s cloud computing sector.
A PPP investor will expand the facility, own and operate it to recoup their investment before handing it over to the government, underscores the government’s push to deliver the centre without burdening the Exchequer.
Some of the services to be offered by the Konza Data Centre are cloud based backup and restoration of critical data of organisations (Back-Up as a Service) and video-conferencing infrastructure.
Others are colocation (renting physical space in a third-party data centre to house your own servers and hardware) and web-hosting to help businesses establish an online presence quickly.
Konza Technopolis is located along Mombasa Road, 80 kilometres from Nairobi CBD and central to Kenya’s plan of becoming a technology hub in Africa with a digital city.
