Microsoft's $1 Billion AI Data Center Will 'Switch Off Half of Kenya' (tomshardware.com)
- Reference: 0183198385
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/05/12/1717225/microsofts-1-billion-ai-data-center-will-switch-off-half-of-kenya
- Source link: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/microsofts-1-billion-kenya-data-center-stalls-over-disagreements-on-power-capacity
> The project, announced in May 2024 during Ruto's visit to Washington, was supposed to bring a geothermal-powered data center to the Olkaria region in Kenya's Rift Valley. G42 was to lead construction, with the facility running Microsoft Azure in a new East Africa cloud region. The first phase targeted 100 megawatts of capacity and was expected to be operational by this year, with a long-term goal of scaling to 1 gigawatt.
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> President Ruto isn't exaggerating about shutting off half the country's power. Kenya's total installed electricity capacity sits between 3,000 and 3,200 megawatts, and peak demand reached a record 2,444 megawatts in January, according to data from KenGen, the country's government-owned electricity producer. The full 1 gigawatt build would therefore have consumed roughly a third of the country's total capacity, and even the first 100 megawatts would have required a significant share of the Olkaria geothermal complex's output, which currently generates around 950MW across all its plants.
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> John Tanui, principal secretary at Kenya's Ministry of Information, told Bloomberg that the project hasn't been withdrawn and that talks are continuing, adding that the "scale of the data center they [Microsoft] wanted to do still requires some structuring." A separate 60-megawatt project with local developer EcoCloud is also still under discussion. [...] Microsoft is spending $190 billion on capex in 2026, and the company adds approximately 1 gigawatt of data center capacity every three months globally. But power constraints are proving to be a universal bottleneck: nearly half of planned U.S. data center builds this year have been delayed or canceled due to shortages of electrical infrastructure.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-10/microsoft-s-african-data-center-falters-on-payment-demands?embedded-checkout=true
[2] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/microsofts-1-billion-kenya-data-center-stalls-over-disagreements-on-power-capacity
why not load shedding the DC and let them run (Score:2)
why not load shedding the DC and let them run off grid for some time.
Re: (Score:2)
Run off-grid?
I assume you think solar and wind? Only if there is a decent-sized military standing guard 24/7, or you protect them somehow... otherwise, the panels and wind turbines will get taken overnight. The DC will need guard towers like a prison has.
RoI (Score:1)
On the one hand it's a greedy western imperialist corporation, yada yada.
But done right, upgrading the grid and capacity to support such a venture could provide economic benefits to a pejoratively 'developing' African nation.
Who pays...
Re:RoI (Score:4, Insightful)
"...upgrading the grid and capacity to support such a venture could provide economic benefits..."
It could just as easily impoverish the nation. as the "upgrades" could easily be made to serve only the venture while being paid for by the locals.
"Done right" is a matter of perspective. We know the perspective that matters, it isn't Kenya's.
Re: (Score:2)
> On the one hand it's a greedy western imperialist corporation, yada yada.
> But done right, upgrading the grid and capacity to support such a venture could provide economic benefits to a pejoratively 'developing' African nation.
> Who pays...
Typically in cases like this, the citizens of the area in question pay, while the benefits ultimately go to the corporation who is also getting massive tax breaks over other businesses in the area because of the huge positives they're theoretically developing for the area which, mysteriously, never materialize. At least, that's how we do it here in the states. I would assume that Microsoft would be expecting it to work the same there as it does here.
Re:When I hear they are going to build a datacente (Score:5, Insightful)
"We'll be happy to sell AI services to folks in Kenya who don't want the datacenter there. Pony up."
Who is "we"? The same liars who scripted the first part of your absurd post?
Re: (Score:2)
So after the construction crews and trades are finished up, how many people does a data center employ?
Re: (Score:3)
Two. A security guard to watch the door, and a dog to bite him when he falls asleep.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly... those are all temp jobs.
They'll have a couple guys posted as security on a 12-hour shift, and like one technician who monitors the site remotely, and only shows up when a drive needs replacing.
And, I wouldn't doubt that there would be the occasional piece of hardware that makes its way out the backdoor for a good cut of yak or something.
Re: (Score:2)
How many data centers in your immediate area? Are they the modern high density data centers with thousands of GPU units per rack or the old school 4U's in a rack supporting a few websites kind of data center?
As for employment, when is the last time you saw a data center that was bustling with human activity once construction and move-in was finished?
MS Power Plant Time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why doesn't MicroSoft just build a 2000GW power plant first?
Re: (Score:1)
The summary says that this thing is supposed to be geothermal powered.
So they just have the cart before the horse here. They need to set up the geothermal power plant first, then build the datacenter after the power plant is operational.
And everybody will be happy.
The geothermal plant already exists [Re:MS Pow...] (Score:2)
> The summary says that this thing is supposed to be geothermal powered. So they just have the cart before the horse here. They need to set up the geothermal power plant first, then build the datacenter after the power plant is operational.
The geothermal plant already exists: [1]https://www.globalelectricity.... [globalelectricity.org]
Apparently, Microsoft was proposing to build the data center there and tap into the existing geothermal power, not build new geothermal power (the summary was a little confusing about that).
[1] https://www.globalelectricity.org/kenya-launches-africas-largest-geothermal-complex/
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe Microsoft should build their own geothermal source, then build a geothermal plant and then build a datacenter?
Re: (Score:2)
>> The summary says that this thing is supposed to be geothermal powered. So they just have the cart before the horse here. They need to set up the geothermal power plant first, then build the datacenter after the power plant is operational.
> The geothermal plant already exists: [1]https://www.globalelectricity.... [globalelectricity.org]
> Apparently, Microsoft was proposing to build the data center there and tap into the existing geothermal power, not build new geothermal power (the summary was a little confusing about that).
Yeah, that was confusing. But Kenya's president is almost certainly wrong. Here's why:
1. It is not numerically correct, assuming the numbers in the summary are accurate. The country has a surplus adequate to power the data center at somewhere around half to three-quarters capacity even at peak power use, and probably at full capacity for 99 days out of 100. So even if they built it at full capacity right off the bat and did nothing else, you'd still only lose power to a small fraction of Kenya occasion
[1] https://www.globalelectricity.org/kenya-launches-africas-largest-geothermal-complex/
Re:MS Power Plant Time? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's cheaper to lobby the government and let the tax payers fund it.
Re: (Score:2)
That costs money. They were hoping the locals would foot that bill for them.
Ob. (Score:3)
640 watts should be enough for anyone. And their family.
If it were me (Score:2)
I'd build a solar+battery powerplant plus a backup (natgas, oil, something that can be trucked in if necessary) for when there's a run of cloudy weather, and sell the excess back into the Kenyan grid. If the grid can cover the shortfall I'll use that, but I'd still want the backup in case of a grid outage during a storm.
Re: (Score:2)
If they also build an electric vehicle factory, they can then use the vehicles for powering the datacenter.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you read the part where they want this to be a Gigawatt scale facility? That means you would need about 25 *square miles* of land for the solar....
Re: (Score:2)
There are several dozen solar installations in the world in the gigawatt range, so it's hardly impossible (especially in a place like Kenya that is generally sunny with a lot of open land).
Re: (Score:2)
Note that you need a significant multiplier of gigawatt scale to get gigawatt scale throughout the night.
But either way, the point is that the magnitude wouldn't be just slapping panels on property already planned, they'd have to have a massive solar install bigger than many cities.
Re: (Score:2)
Storage would be a bigger problem than generating the power. The largest grid-scale battery storage facility in the world only stores 3.2Gwh. You'd need more like 15Gwh to reliably get through the night and early/late low-generation hours, and of course solar generation would go way down during cloudy weather.
Re: (Score:2)
But... then they'll be polluting!
And, we're talking GW... how big does the solar field and warehouse-sized battery backup have to be to keep it working 24/7?
If the grid can cover the shortfall?? The grid is basically lamp cord and wire nuts (they might even have a ground wire). This ain't NYC we're talking about, here.
Never mind the power... (Score:3)
...what about the cooling? Equatorial Africa is not exactly known for its temperate climate.
Worse, half the population of Kenya don't have access to clean drinking water, and low rainfall for the last year means that many areas are in drought conditions.
It's long past time that some decision-makers got a good beating with the clue-stick.
New strategy to use against data centers. (Score:2)
Let them build them, but they must build the power for it first - built and paid for by themselves before the data center itself can break ground.
Leaches and damned leaches, they even stole my cheap RAM.
Well, only 1/4 of Kenya (Score:5, Funny)
since it's Azure, it'll be down half the time. ;-)
Re: (Score:1)
In Africa more so :D