AMACO Energy Group, a Greek multinational energy and infrastructure firm, is planning to build a KSh 194 billion (US$ 1.5 billion) AI data center in Mombasa, Kenya, that won’t rely on the country’s ailing electricity supply.
The news comes via a report from Business Daily, which notes that AMACO’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Theodore Theodoropoulos, is meeting with Kenyan officials in Nairobi, seeking approval for the project.
“A key objective of Dr Theodoropoulos’s visit to Nairobi is to explore the development of one of the world’s largest AI data-centre facilities in Kenya, designed as a fully integrated and independently powered installation, without reliance on the national electricity grid or conventional natural-gas infrastructure,” an AMACO spokesperson told Business Daily.
In May, AMACO identified East Africa as a “high-potential region for digital growth”, noting that the region’s main constraint is power including grid capacity, high energy costs, and long infrastructure development timelines. While this constraint has stalled a data center project proposed by Microsoft and G42, AMACO has its own answer to that constraint: an offshore energy and data center solution called Hercules.
“AMACO’s offshore AI-powered energy solution offers a transformative pathway by bypassing grid limitations through fully autonomous offshore deployment, enabling faster development of data centers and digital infrastructure while supporting regional competitiveness and economic growth. This approach has the potential to position East Africa as a future hub for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing,” the company wrote in May.
AMACO describes Hercules as a single offshore smart power ecosystem bundling power generation, AI-driven optimization, heat and cold recovery and direct-to-data-center integration. Of note is that the compute power is built into the platform rather than being supplied by it.
However, AMACO has yet to confirm several important details about the project including whether the data center will be moored offshore or located within the coastal city of Mombasa. There are also no details regarding the capacity of the data center. As it stands, AMACO is still seeking approvals, so it’s very early in the process and these details often remain undisclosed at this stage.
As outlined by Mordor Intelligence, 41 percent of Kenya’s data centers have 1 to 10 MW of capacity, and while mega-scale facilities are expanding at an 11.5 percent CAGR to 2030, operators are forced to rely on diesel backup power given the unreliability of the grid, which is prone to national blackouts and voltage sags.