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CIO Africa

The Megawatt Is Africa’s Data Centre Bottleneck

The headline out of Unstoppable Africa 2026 was a permanent African seat on the United Nations Security Council. The more consequential number for the continent’s digital economy was $300 million, and it was attached to solar mini-grids.The Nigeria Distributed Renewable Energy Fund reached commercial launch on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly. It is co-managed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority and Africa50, with Sustainable Energy for All as a partner and $25 million in IDA financing from the World Bank.The fund will finance mini-grids, standalone solar systems and storage for communities and businesses that the national grid does not reach.It sits under Mission 300, the World Bank and African Development Bank programme targeting electricity access for 300 million Africans by 2030. Organisers said the initiative has passed 50 million connections across 40 countries.Read against what the digital infrastructure industry was debating in Nairobi last week, it becomes something else: a large pool of African capital targeting the input that increasingly determines where compute can be built.At ITW Africa in Nairobi, one of the central questions was the cost of a megawatt.Andile Ngcaba put the build cost of data centre capacity on the continent at around $12 million per megawatt, against a target closer to $5 million. JLL puts the global average build cost at roughly $11.3 million per megawatt for 2026.The gap that matters is not simply the construction cost. It is everything wrapped around unreliable power: redundancy designed for a grid that cannot always be depended on, diesel and storage capacity sized for outages that are assumed rather than exceptional, and a cost of capital priced for both.An operator does not pay a premium because concrete is necessarily more expensive in Nairobi or Lagos.It pays a premium because reliable power is not always available, and every layer of engineering required to compensate for that uncertainty lands on the balance sheet before a single rack is energised.The IMF counts about 160 data centres in Africa, roughly 5.5 per cent of the global total by facility count. The African Actors of Data Center Association’s 2026 economic report puts the continent’s share of global capacity at about 0.6 per cent, or roughly 360 megawatts.Africa has a respectable number of buildings and a much smaller share of global capacity. Counting facilities flatters the position. Counting power does not.The IMF’s AI Preparedness Index ranks sub-Saharan Africa lowest and identifies power shortages as a primary constraint. It projects that AI could add about 4 per cent to the sub-Saharan economy over a decade, conditional on electricity supply, internet access and skills.In New York, African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf listed the continent’s binding constraints as affordable energy, infrastructure, access to finance, skills, technology and standards.UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, speaking about deploying AI at scale, said Africa has the talent and ideas and needs the opportunity, infrastructure and investment.Both, however, described a constraint that sits at the centre of the industry’s growth equation.The temptation is to treat a distributed renewable energy fund as a rural electrification instrument and therefore separate from hyperscale ambition.What unlocks private generation at data centre scale is closely related to what unlocks it at village scale: the ability of private producers to sell power to private buyers under viable commercial and regulatory frameworks.Raxio chief executive Robert Skjødt has framed the requirement in those terms. South Africa’s 2022 Energy Action Plan, which opened the way for private power purchase agreements, provides a reference case. Kenya and Nigeria are working through comparable changes.A fund that finances independent generation and helps establish viable contracting, credit structures and regulatory pathways at one scale can help build the infrastructure and market mechanisms required at another.Alain Ebobissé of Africa50 described the vehicle as a model that can scale across Africa. Aminu Umar-Sadiq of NSIA said Nigeria’s distributed renewable market is investable, credible and ready to operate at scale.Telkom Kenya’s Kibati told the ITW Africa panel in Nairobi that roughly 90 per cent of the population sits under network coverage while usage is closer to 28 per cent.Built capacity that goes unused is a familiar African outcome. It can emerge in power as it does in connectivity: capital deployed against demand that cannot yet support the investment.Data centre load is large, contracted and creditworthy. It is also less dependent on proximity to population centres than many traditional forms of electricity demand.In generation terms, it can become the anchor customer that distributed renewable projects have historically lacked.That creates an overlap between two markets that are often discussed separately.

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Nairobi Wire

KSh2.2 Trillion Dangote-Backed Lamu Refinery Set for September 30 Groundbreaking

Construction of the $17 billion (Ksh 2.2 trillion) East Africa Refinery in Lamu is set to begin on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, with President William Ruto leading the groundbreaking ceremony. The mega-project, backed by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), represents one of the largest private-sector industrial investments in East Africa’s history. Speaking on Tuesday following final preparation meetings, Deputy President Kithure Kindiki confirmed that protocol, security, and logistics arrangements are being finalized to host invited regional Heads of State, foreign dignitaries, and members of the local community. “We are now putting up the final preparations to ensure that all the guests that come receive the right protocol reception to ensure the program of the event is managed in accordance with the stature of this event, and also to ensure that security and logistics are organised to the standards of this event,” Kindiki stated. Boosting Regional Industrialization and Employment Designed with a massive processing capacity of 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day, the facility will serve as a regional hub for petrochemical refining and industrial operations. Kindiki highlighted that the mega-refinery will significantly reduce Kenya’s foreign exchange drain caused by refined fuel imports while driving job creation across the Coast reg...

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Nairobi Wire

Uhuru Takes Swipe at Ruto, Says Raila Won the 2022 Vote

Former President Uhuru Kenyatta openly questioned the legitimacy of President William Ruto’s victory in the 2022 General Election, asserting that the late Raila Odinga won the presidential race. Speaking during a Jubilee Party National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Nairobi, Kenyatta revealed that he still harbors deep doubts about the official election results that brought his former deputy to power. “Tulifanya kila kitu kumsaidia Baba awe Rais wa Jamhuri yetu ya Kenya. Na kura akapata, na mimi mpaka wa leo najua ya kwamba yeye ndiye alishinda hiyo kura. Tunajua vile mambo ilienda, na hatutaki iende hivyo tena,” Kenyatta said. (Translation: “We did everything to help Baba become the president of our Republic of Kenya. And he got the votes, and up to today, I know that he is the one who won that election. We know how things went, and we do not want it to go that way again.”) The former Head of State pointed to the parliamentary and county numbers achieved by the Azimio la Umoja–One Kenya Coalition Party as a reason to question the final presidential outcome. “How can you say you won yet we have most Members of Parliament, Senators, and Governors? How could you say we lost? We know how things went down,” he said. Official results from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) recorded William Ruto’s win with 7,176,141 votes (50.49%), while Raila Odinga gat...

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Nairobi Wire

Sifuna’s Political Vehicle Faces Hurdle as ORPP Rejects Name

Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna and Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya have hit a regulatory setback after the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) rejected their proposal to rename the United Democratic Party (UDP). The leaders sought to rebrand UDP, an outfit associated with the late former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo, into the Ukombozi People’s Party (UPP) as a vehicle for their political movement ahead of the 2027 General Election. In a decision dated September 8, 2026, the Registrar declined the requested changes to the party’s name, theme colors, and symbols, citing statutory restrictions under Section 8(c) of the Political Parties Act. The regulator noted that the proposed name closely resembles “The Ukombozi Alliance (TUA),” a name reserved by another applicant on July 20, 2026, following the rebranding of the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Alliance. Under the law, the Registrar must refuse any application if a proposed political party name or abbreviation closely resembles an existing entity or previously reserved name. Clock Ticking on IEBC Deadlines The legal and administrative hurdles come at a crucial time, as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) issued strict regulatory timelines for the 2027 polls. According to gazetted guidelines, political parties intending to field candidates must submit the names and specimen signatures of their au...

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Nairobi Wire

Court Explains Why IEBC Must Verify Presidential Results Nationally

The High Court has thrown out a petition filed by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah seeking to declare the national tallying and verification of presidential election results unconstitutional. In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, the court upheld Section 39(1C) of the Elections Act and Regulation 83(2) of the Elections (General) Regulations, confirming that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) retains the legal mandate to aggregate and verify presidential results at the national level. Court Upholds National Verification Mandate Omtatah had filed the petition arguing that the Constitution places the primary and final responsibility for tallying, verifying, and declaring presidential results strictly at the constituency level. He asked the court to issue orders barring the IEBC from re-tallying or re-verifying presidential results once constituency returning officers announce them. However, the bench ruled that national aggregation remains a necessary legal requirement because presidential candidates must satisfy unique, nationwide electoral benchmarks. Under Article 138(4) of the Constitution, a winning candidate must secure more than 50 percent of the total votes cast nationally, as well as at least 25 percent of the votes cast in more than half of the 47 counties. The judges observed that electoral officials cannot verify this dual threshold...

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The Sun

Piers Morgan calls for Earl Spencer’s Diana memoir to be destroyed over its ‘complete lies’ as he rejects his apology

PIERS Morgan has demanded copies of Earl Spencer’s book about his late sister Princess Diana be destroyed over its “complete lies”. The broadcaster rejected an apology from the author for inaccuracies about him and called in lawyers. The Earl admits wrongly claiming the ex-tabloid editor was behind the Mirror Group’s publication of intrusive photos of...

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