Can Kenya’s AI ambitions coexist with Naivasha’s water needs?

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that Kenya’s efforts to attract artificial intelligence and data-centre investment are colliding with long-running concerns about water stress around Naivasha, a freshwater lake region in the Rift Valley. The article focuses on a proposed Microsoft-G42 data-centre project in Olkaria, near Lake Naivasha, which was announced in 2024 as part of a broader $1bn digital investment package for Kenya but stalled in May 2026 over power-capacity concerns.

The planned facility was described by the companies as a geothermal-powered campus with water-conservation technology, but the report says no project-specific water-use figure has been made public. Residents, pastoralists and local groups told Al Jazeera that the area already faces shortages, with some relying on water vendors and seeing longer distances for livestock. They worry that another large industrial user could deepen pressure on households, farming, schools and grazing land.

Local observers quoted in the piece say Lake Naivasha’s basin is already affected by population growth, agriculture, abstraction, climate variability, pollution and ecosystem damage. They also note that the wider Kenyan context matters: the UN Food and Agriculture Organization is cited as describing Kenya as water-scarce overall. The article does not claim the proposed data centre has begun operating, but it highlights the lack of transparency around water demand and calls from residents and environmental watchers for recycling, efficient cooling, public monitoring and limits on abstraction.