East African data center firm iXAfrica is to host Oracle’s Kenyan cloud region.

The company this week announced it has been selected as the host partner for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) region in Nairobi, Kenya.

“We are delighted to be in execution mode to bring OCI to Kenya,” said Snehar Shah, CEO, iXAfrica. “With this collaboration, iXAfrica is leveraging the renewable energy, talent, and abundant submarine and national connectivity available in our market.”

Plans for Oracle’s Kenyan cloud region were first announced in early 2024. A launch date hasn’t been provided, and the site is listed as “coming soon” on Oracle’s website.

This would be the company’s second cloud region in Africa. Oracle opened its Johannesburg OCI region in January 2022. A second South African region is planned for the future, and two regions in Morocco are also listed as coming soon.

“Around the world, governments and enterprises rely on OCI for its security, scalability, and ability to run mission-critical workloads that enable innovation at scale,” said David Bunei, country leader for Kenya, Oracle. “These unique capabilities and our collaboration with iXAfrica will further support the growth of the country’s digital economy.”

iXAfrica’s NBOX1 is a 17,300 sqm (186,215 sq ft) data center located on Mombasa Road in Nairobi. Located on land that was formerly part of a Schneider Electric complex, the air-cooled site could offer more than 20MW at full build-out. The first building offers 4.5MW, while the second building will offer 18MW.

A second campus in the city is planned.

Pan-African telecoms firm Paratus offers cloud services out of the NBOX1 site.