Data centres used to be the kind of infrastructure people never thought about. Your app worked, your money moved, and that was that. Nobody was asking where the computers making it all happen were sitting. Now Kenya has many of those buildings (and more on the way), so the regulator is giving them their own rulebook.
What happened? The Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK), the country’s telecoms regulator, said it wants to introduce a standalone licence for commercial data centres. The CAK said the change will align its broader licencing regime with the evolving industry.
Explain like I’m new here: Until now, commercial data centres were treated as part of the physical infrastructure that supports telecommunications under the Network Facilities Provider (NFP) Tier 2 licence. The licence category is a regulatory umbrella for companies that build and operate infrastructure used to move electronic communications around Kenya, including transmission, switching, and routing systems, terrestrial networks, satellite networks, mobile networks, and commercial data centres.
In previous consultations, operators also argued that their core business is providing buildings, power, cooling, and server space, not telecommunications itself. Now, they’re getting their own category.
Big industry, big headache? This is what happens when an industry gets big enough for regulators to start worrying about. Kenya had nearly 20 megawatts (MW) of data centre capacity in 2025, with roughly 150MW more planned across the region. That’s enough electricity to power thousands of homes.
Operators in Kenya are also building big projects, making these licences essential. Pan-African telecom firm Airtel Africa is building a 44MW data centre facility called Nxtra in Tatu City, expected to be completed in 2027. Its Kenyan subsidiary is still awaiting an NFP Tier 1 licence from CAK, which will enable the telecom firm to natively build and operate large-scale data centres without needing separate permits. The NFP Tier 2 licence serves as a baseline operational starting point for regional data centres.
More data centres also means more support for cloud capacity as demand increases. According to global consulting firm PwC, nearly 90% of the surveyed organisations increased their cloud usage to support AI and machine learning. More AI means more computing, which means more servers, and eventually more data centres.
What changes? The current NFP Tier 2 licence lasts 15 years, compared with 25 years for Tier 1. The latter costs KES 5,000 ($38.63) to apply and KES 15 million ($115,897) for the licence. Operators also pay an annual fee of 0.4% of gross revenue or KES 4 million ($30,905), whichever is higher. Tier 2 has the same application and licence fees, but a lower minimum annual fee of KES 800,000 ($6,181). The current system already gives the CAK broad oversight of NFP operators. The new framework could give it more specific rules for data centres, rather than treating them like other NFP operators.
