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TCS Sovereign Cloud Goes Live In Nairobi
Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) sovereign cloud platform is now live in Kenya, hosted at iXAfrica Data Centres’ Nairobi facility and delivered through a partnership between TCS and regional systems integrator Sybyl.
The launch was announced on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at an event held at the Harvard Club in New York.
Ambassador Philip Thigo, Special Envoy on Technology to the President of Kenya, made the announcement alongside Snehar Shah, chief executive officer of iXAfrica Data Centres; Frank Mwiti, chief executive of the Nairobi Securities Exchange; John Mwendwa, chief executive of the Kenya Investment Authority; and TCS representatives.
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The platform provides government and enterprise users with in-country cloud infrastructure designed to support data residency, security, regulatory compliance and digital transformation, Thigo said.
“As AI, digital public infrastructure and data become increasingly central to economic competitiveness and public service delivery, countries need trusted infrastructure through which they can exercise greater agency over their digital future,” he said.
How the partnership is structured
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The three-way partnership was announced on 13 November 2025 and has now moved into production.
TCS provides the sovereign cloud architecture, deployment frameworks and security expertise through its TCS Sovereign Secure Cloud offering. Sybyl handles local implementation, customer support and regional technical expertise across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. iXAfrica provides the underlying data centre infrastructure.
The platform targets government agencies and public sector institutions, regulated industries such as banking and telecommunications, large enterprises with data sovereignty requirements, and regional financial institutions and utilities.
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“Our sovereign cloud fuels future-forward business models while meeting stringent privacy and regulatory requirements,” said Satishchandra Doreswamy, vice president of TCS’s cloud unit for growth markets, when the partnership was announced.
Shailendra Yadav, Sybyl chief executive framed the proposition in economic terms, arguing that digital independence must deliver tangible benefits by reducing currency exposure and foreign policy risk.
“African data stays in Africa, secure, sustainable, and ready to power innovation,” said Shah.
The facility
The platform runs on iXAfrica’s NBOX1 campus on Mombasa Road, which the company describes as East Africa’s first and largest carrier-neutral, AI-ready hyperscale data centre.
NBOX1 has a design capacity of 22.5MW across two phases. NBOX1.1 provides 4.5MW of IT load across 780 racks, while NBOX1.2 adds 18MW across 3,744 racks.
The campus supports high-density workloads of up to 40kW per rack, operates at a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.25 and uses free-air cooling. It draws power from the Kenyan grid, which iXAfrica says generates more than 90 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources.
Two additional campuses are planned. NBOX2 is designed to deliver more than 53MW on an 11-acre site at Tilisi, approximately 40km from the existing facility. NBOX3 is planned for a site southeast of NBOX1.1.
The African Actors of Data Center Association’s 2026 economic report puts the continent’s total installed data centre capacity at approximately 360MW, equivalent to about 0.6 per cent of global capacity.
The same campus hosts Oracle’s Kenya public cloud region, making iXAfrica the physical home of multiple cloud platforms serving the Kenyan market.
What has not been disclosed
Neither TCS, Sybyl nor iXAfrica has disclosed the commercial terms of the arrangement, the capacity allocated to the sovereign cloud platform or its pricing.