AMACO seeks approval for US$1.5 billion off-grid AI data center in Kenya

AMACO Energy Group, a Greek multinational energy and infrastructure firm, is advancing plans to build a KSh 194 billion (US$1.5 billion) AI data center in Mombasa, Kenya, designed to operate entirely off the national electricity grid. The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Theodore Theodoropoulos, is currently in Nairobi meeting with Kenyan officials to secure project approval, according to a report from Business Daily.

The proposed facility would be fully integrated and independently powered, avoiding reliance on both the national grid and conventional natural-gas infrastructure. An AMACO spokesperson said the visit is aimed at exploring the development of one of the world’s largest AI data-center facilities in Kenya, positioned as a self-sufficient installation that could bypass the country’s persistent power supply challenges.

Kenya’s electricity grid has long struggled with reliability, marked by national blackouts and voltage sags that have forced existing data center operators to depend heavily on diesel backup systems. According to Mordor Intelligence, 41 percent of Kenya’s data centers currently operate within the 1 to 10 MW capacity range. While mega-scale facilities are expected to grow at an 11.5 percent compound annual growth rate through 2030, grid instability remains a significant barrier to large-scale digital infrastructure expansion.

AMACO first flagged East Africa as a high-potential region for digital growth in May, identifying power constraints—including limited grid capacity, high energy costs, and lengthy infrastructure development timelines—as the region’s primary bottleneck. Those same constraints had previously stalled a data center project proposed by Microsoft and G42. In response, AMACO developed Hercules, an offshore energy and data center platform that bundles power generation, AI-driven optimization, heat and cold recovery, and direct-to-data-center integration. Notably, the platform embeds compute capacity directly into its design, rather than merely supplying power to separate facilities.

The company said in May that the offshore 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. AMACO added that the approach could position East Africa as a future hub for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.

Despite the project’s scale, several critical details remain unconfirmed. AMACO has not disclosed whether the data center will be moored offshore or located within Mombasa itself, nor has it provided specifics on the facility’s capacity. The company is still in the approval-seeking phase, and such details are typically withheld at this early stage of development.

If approved, the project would represent a major step toward addressing East Africa’s digital infrastructure gap, potentially setting a precedent for off-grid data center development in regions where grid reliability is a fundamental constraint.