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

Naivasha, Kenya – For communities surviving astir Naivasha, h2o is not an abstract resource. It sustains families, livestock, farms and schools.

That world has taken connected caller value aft plans for a large Microsoft-G42 information centre successful Olkaria, adjacent Lake Naivasha, stalled successful May 2026 implicit concerns astir disposable powerfulness capacity.

Microsoft and United Arab Emirates-based artificial quality institution G42 announced the task successful 2024 arsenic portion of a $1bn integer concern bundle for Kenya. The projected installation was to tally connected geothermal vigor and yet standard to arsenic overmuch arsenic 1 gigawatt of capacity.

The uncertainty has besides prompted questions astir what different large concern idiosyncratic could mean for h2o successful a portion wherever residents already study shortages.

Microsoft and G42 said the projected information centre field would tally wholly connected renewable geothermal vigor and incorporated h2o conservation technology. The companies did not disclose a project-specific h2o depletion fig successful their 2024 announcement.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) communications manager Frank David Ochieng told Al Jazeera that the information centre remains astatine the plan signifier and that helium could not remark further until the task is acceptable to proceed.

For residents similar Musa Olorkedienye, who spoke to Al Jazeera, h2o scarcity is already a regular concern. He says communities astir Olkaria person seen changes successful entree to water, including the nonaccomplishment of reliable piped supplies that residents antecedently received from KenGen.

“Currently, we are relying connected h2o vendors to get water, our animals are walking for kilometres, and we fearfulness things could get worse arsenic request for h2o rises,” Olorkedienye says.

Pastoralist Isaac Leshishi, who besides spoke to Al Jazeera, says progressively harsh upwind is adding to the pressure.

Why Olkaria?

The prime of Olkaria was intimately tied to energy. The country is location to Kenya’s large geothermal operations, making it an charismatic determination for a power-intensive facility.

River Malewa, a large tributary of Lake Naivasha, successful Kenya [Hafsa Abdiwahab Sheikh/Al Jazeera]

KenGen operates the Olkaria geothermal complex, portion Microsoft and G42 planned to powerfulness the projected information centre wholly with geothermal energy.

A water nether pressure

Naivasha is simply a freshwater water successful Kenya’s Rift Valley whose catchment supports agriculture, tourism, livestock and home h2o use. Its basin besides hosts geothermal improvement and different economical activity.

Grace Kimani, a patrol person with Lake Naivasha and Oloiden, told Al Jazeera that the reservoir is nether increasing unit from colonisation growth, agriculture, h2o abstraction, clime variability, contamination and ecosystem degradation.

“The planned Microsoft-G42 information centre successful Olkaria could bring jobs and investment, but its h2o request raises concerns astir adding unit to already competing needs, peculiarly during adust periods,” she said.

Kimani said determination is constricted nationalist accusation astir the project’s expected h2o demand, root and cooling technology. She said transparency and an appraisal of its cumulative interaction connected h2o resources would beryllium important.

She besides called for water-efficient oregon water-free cooling, h2o recycling and the usage of treated wastewater, arsenic good arsenic sustainable abstraction limits and assemblage engagement successful monitoring.

Kamere landing formation has been flooded by rising h2o levels successful Lake Naivasha, Kenya [Hafsa Abdiwahab Sheikh/Al Jazeera]

Silas Wanjala of the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said the portion is heavy babelike connected groundwater and that declining h2o flows are adding to the pressure.

“These industries, particularly EcoCloud, which woody with data, volition devour a batch of h2o astatine a clip erstwhile rivers are drying, and request for h2o is connected the rise,” Wanjala said.

Olkaria EcoCloud Data Centre is simply a section spouse successful the G42-led development. In 2024, the Kenya News Agency reported that G42, Microsoft and EcoCloud signed a missive of intent for the wider data-centre initiative, with EcoCloud described arsenic a section spouse that had antecedently signed a memorandum of knowing with G42.

Wanjala points to past fluctuations successful Lake Naivasha arsenic a warning.

“This water successful 2010 astir dried up owed to over-abstraction, and this could beryllium repeated owed to precocious request for h2o by these investors successful Olkaria,” helium says.

His interest comes against a wider backdrop of h2o scarcity successful Kenya. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations says Kenya has astir 527 cubic metres (527,000 litres) of freshwater disposable per person, beneath the 1,000-cubic-metre threshold for h2o scarcity, and estimates availability could autumn to astir 475 cubic metres per idiosyncratic by 2030.

The figures bash not amusement what effect the projected information centre would person connected Lake Naivasha. They supply context, however, for wherefore the imaginable of different large h2o idiosyncratic is drafting scrutiny successful a portion wherever request is already high.

How overmuch h2o would it use?

The magnitude of h2o the projected Microsoft-G42 installation itself would necessitate remains unclear.

The task announcement provides nary projected depletion figure.

Existing concern usage offers immoderate context.

A KenGen biology and societal interaction appraisal records that 195,165 cubic metres of h2o were abstracted from Lake Naivasha successful July 2023 for home and commercialized uses astatine Olkaria and for operations and home usage astatine Eburru.

Of that total, 153,918 cubic metres were utilized for commercialized operations astatine Olkaria. The appraisal records the abstraction arsenic wrong Water Resources Authority (WRA) permitted levels.

Those figures subordinate to existing KenGen operations, not the projected information centre.

For husbandman Eskimos Kobia, who spoke to Al Jazeera, the imaginable contention extends beyond households and livestock. He says farmers, pastoralists, schools and investors volition each look greater unit arsenic request increases.

Kimani said clime variability has besides led to fluctuations successful water levels, with periods of flooding followed by prolonged adust conditions.

“Water prime is affected by cultivation run-off, untreated wastewater successful immoderate areas and invasive species,” she says.

Investment versus section concerns

Not everyone successful Naivasha opposes the investment.

Absolom Mukhuusi of the Naivasha Professional Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, says the exertion assemblage could bring jobs, infrastructure and caller businesses to the area. But helium says economical benefits should not travel astatine the disbursal of section communities.

The Wildlife Research and Training Institute wetland probe centre has been flooded by rising h2o levels successful Lake Naivasha [Hafsa Abdiwahab Sheikh/Al Jazeera]

“Even arsenic we invited the investors, our biggest fearfulness is what happens to our h2o bodies and communities arsenic h2o is diverted to Olkaria for the dense users,” helium says.

Could exertion help?

Geologist Kenyatta Otieno, who spoke to Al Jazeera, sees different imaginable benefit.

He recalls the unit ample angiosperm farms erstwhile placed connected the lake’s ecosystem, saying galore person since near oregon scaled backmost their operations.

Otieno says the projected centre would person included a assets centre to show water levels and upwind patterns. Such monitoring, helium says, could assistance place the highest h2o level implicit clip and usher riparian onshore zoning.

“The centre being built with h2o conservation successful caput would beryllium futuristic arsenic Naivasha is mostly a water-scarce area. It would beryllium a exemplary for aboriginal development,” Otieno said.

Kenya already has regulators liable for managing competing demands. The WRA regulates h2o abstraction and issues water-use permits, portion the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) oversees biology interaction assessments nether the country’s biology regulatory framework.

Attempts by Al Jazeera to get comments from WRA and NEMA officials were unsuccessful. Efforts to scope Microsoft-G42 officials and Kenyan authorities officials for remark connected the project’s presumption and h2o requirements were besides unsuccessful.

For now, the project’s eventual scale, plan and h2o requirements stay unclear, according to KenGen.

“We are present competing with the multibillion [-dollar] companies for water, and we fearfulness that we shall beryllium the losers successful the agelong run,” Leshishi said.