ambitions

Naivasha, Kenya – For communities living around Naivasha, water is not an abstract resource. It sustains families, livestock, farms and schools.

That reality has taken on new significance after plans for a major Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria, near Lake Naivasha, stalled in May 2026 over concerns about available power capacity.

Microsoft and United Arab Emirates-based artificial intelligence company G42 announced the project in 2024 as part of a $1bn digital investment package for Kenya. The proposed facility was to run on geothermal energy and eventually scale to as much as 1 gigawatt of capacity.

The uncertainty has also prompted questions about what another major industrial user could mean for water in a region where residents already report shortages.

Microsoft and G42 said the proposed data centre campus would run entirely on renewable geothermal energy and incorporate water conservation technology. The companies did not disclose a project-specific water consumption figure in their 2024 announcement.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) communications director Frank David Ochieng told Al Jazeera that the data centre remains at the design stage and that he could not comment further until the project is ready to proceed.

For residents like Musa Olorkedienye, who spoke to Al Jazeera, water scarcity is already a daily concern. He says communities around Olkaria have seen changes in access to water, including the loss of reliable piped supplies that residents previously received from KenGen.

“Currently, we are relying on water vendors to get water, our animals are walking for kilometres, and we fear things could get worse as demand for water rises,” Olorkedienye says.

Pastoralist Isaac Leshishi, who also spoke to Al Jazeera, says increasingly harsh weather is adding to the pressure.

Why Olkaria?

The choice of Olkaria was closely tied to energy. The area is home to Kenya’s major geothermal operations, making it an attractive location for a power-intensive facility.

KenGen operates the Olkaria geothermal complex, while Microsoft and G42 planned to power the proposed data centre entirely with geothermal energy.

A lake under pressure

Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya’s Rift Valley whose catchment supports agriculture, tourism, livestock and domestic water use. Its basin also hosts geothermal development and other economic activity.

Grace Kimani, a patrol leader with Lake Naivasha and Oloiden, told Al Jazeera that the reservoir is under growing pressure from population growth, agriculture, water abstraction, climate variability, pollution and ecosystem degradation.

“The planned Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria could bring jobs and investment, but its water demand raises concerns about adding pressure to already competing needs, particularly during dry periods,” she said.

Kimani said there is limited public information about the project’s expected water demand, source and cooling technology. She said transparency and an assessment of its cumulative impact on water resources would be important.

She also called for water-efficient or water-free cooling, water recycling and the use of treated wastewater, as well as sustainable abstraction limits and community involvement in monitoring.

Silas Wanjala of the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said the region is heavily dependent on groundwater and that declining water flows are adding to the pressure.

“These industries, especially EcoCloud, which deal with data, will consume a lot of water at a time when rivers are drying, and demand for water is on the rise,” Wanjala said.

Olkaria EcoCloud Data Centre is a local partner in the G42-led development. In 2024, the Kenya News Agency reported that G42, Microsoft and EcoCloud signed a letter of intent for the wider data-centre initiative, with EcoCloud described as a local partner that had previously signed a memorandum of understanding with G42.

Wanjala points to past fluctuations in Lake Naivasha as a warning.

“This lake in 2010 nearly dried up due to over-abstraction, and this could be repeated due to high demand for water by these investors in Olkaria,” he says.

His concern comes against a wider backdrop of water scarcity in Kenya. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations says Kenya has about 527 cubic metres (527,000 litres) of freshwater available per person, below the 1,000-cubic-metre threshold for water scarcity, and estimates availability could fall to about 475 cubic metres per person by 2030.

The figures do not show what effect the proposed data centre would have on Lake Naivasha. They provide context, however, for why the prospect of another major water user is drawing scrutiny in a region where demand is already high.

How much water would it use?

The amount of water the proposed Microsoft-G42 facility itself would require remains unclear.

The project announcement provides no projected consumption figure.

Existing industrial use offers some context.

A KenGen environmental and social impact assessment records that 195,165 cubic metres of water were abstracted from Lake Naivasha in July 2023 for domestic and commercial uses at Olkaria and for operations and domestic use at Eburru.

Of that total, 153,918 cubic metres were used for commercial operations at Olkaria. The assessment records the abstraction as within Water Resources Authority (WRA) permitted levels.

Those figures relate to existing KenGen operations, not the proposed data centre.

For farmer Eskimos Kobia, who spoke to Al Jazeera, the potential competition extends beyond households and livestock. He says farmers, pastoralists, schools and investors will all face greater pressure as demand increases.

Kimani said climate variability has also led to fluctuations in lake levels, with periods of flooding followed by prolonged dry conditions.

“Water quality is affected by agricultural run-off, untreated wastewater in some areas and invasive species,” she says.

Investment versus local concerns

Not everyone in Naivasha opposes the investment.

Absolom Mukhuusi of the Naivasha Professional Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, says the technology sector could bring jobs, infrastructure and new businesses to the area. But he says economic benefits should not come at the expense of local communities.

“Even as we welcome the investors, our biggest fear is what happens to our water bodies and communities as water is diverted to Olkaria for the heavy users,” he says.

Could technology help?

Geologist Kenyatta Otieno, who spoke to Al Jazeera, sees another potential benefit.

He recalls the pressure large flower farms once placed on the lake’s ecosystem, saying many have since left or scaled back their operations.

Otieno says the proposed centre would have included a resource centre to monitor lake levels and weather patterns. Such monitoring, he says, could help identify the highest water level over time and guide riparian land zoning.

“The centre being built with water conservation in mind would be futuristic as Naivasha is generally a water-scarce area. It would be a model for future development,” Otieno said.

Kenya already has regulators responsible for managing competing demands. The WRA regulates water abstraction and issues water-use permits, while the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) oversees environmental impact assessments under the country’s environmental regulatory framework.

Attempts by Al Jazeera to obtain comments from WRA and NEMA officials were unsuccessful. Efforts to reach Microsoft-G42 officials and Kenyan government officials for comment on the project’s status and water requirements were also unsuccessful.

For now, the project’s eventual scale, design and water requirements remain unclear, according to KenGen.

“We are now competing with the multibillion [-dollar] companies for water, and we fear that we shall be the losers in the long run,” Leshishi said.

Harare, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe wants to move beyond being a supplier of raw minerals and build industries that process and manufacture from its own resources. But as the government tightens restrictions on unprocessed mineral exports, smaller miners are asking whether they will share in that transformation or be left behind.

The government has restricted exports of unprocessed strategic minerals, including lithium, as part of a broader drive to increase domestic beneficiation. Authorities argue that Zimbabwe should capture more value from its mineral wealth instead of exporting raw materials and allowing other countries to profit from refining and manufacturing.

The policy has attracted more than $1bn in investment into Zimbabwe’s lithium value chain, according to government officials and industry representatives. But smaller miners warn that the cost of building processing facilities, unreliable electricity supplies and limited access to finance could make it difficult for them to participate in the country’s industrial ambitions.

Speaking during a technical media tour of Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (PLZ) in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East, on 17 July, Minister of Mines and Mining Development Polite Kambamura said Zimbabwe’s 2022 ban on exports of unbeneficiated lithium ore had encouraged companies to invest in domestic beneficiation.

“The construction of the first lithium sulphate plant in Africa is behind me, and this was done in Zimbabwe,” Kambamura said.

He said Zimbabwe’s ambitions extended beyond lithium sulphate and lithium carbonate production, with a long-term goal of developing industries capable of manufacturing lithium batteries and solar panels locally.

Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, owned by China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, said its lithium carbonate plant was about 90 percent complete.

PLZ public relations officer Patience Mushore said Huayou’s investments had generated more than $1.1bn in foreign exchange for Zimbabwe while expanding the country’s lithium value chain.

Policy shift

Supporters of Zimbabwe’s export restrictions argue that the country can no longer remain a supplier of raw minerals while other nations capture greater profits through refining and manufacturing.

Public policy expert Tedious Ncube said Zimbabwe’s lithium sector demonstrated why the government had prioritised beneficiation.

He pointed to investments at Arcadia Mine and Bikita Minerals as examples of companies expanding Zimbabwe’s lithium sector.

Ncube said domestic processing could create skilled jobs, strengthen local suppliers and allow Zimbabwe to retain a greater share of the income generated from its mineral resources.

“The success of Zimbabwe’s lithium industry shows that the right policy can attract investment that builds industries, creates jobs and leaves a bigger share of mineral wealth in Zimbabwe,” he said.

Mining concerns

For smaller producers, the debate is not whether Zimbabwe should process its minerals locally, but whether they will have the infrastructure, finance, and market access needed to participate.

Shelton Lucas, business development director at Naivo Mining, said the company operates chrome, antimony and tungsten projects in Mashava, Ngezi and Kadoma but faces challenges accessing affordable processing options.

Lucas said smaller producers were struggling to access processing capacity, particularly in the chrome sector.

“For our raw chrome, we are now forced to sell to local Chinese smelters where they underpay us. For antimony, I have the resources to build the value-addition plant, but for chrome I cannot because the plant is very expensive,” he said.

He said he supported domestic processing but warned that smaller miners could be excluded if new requirements were introduced without support mechanisms.

Lucas proposed a toll-smelting system, where public institutions or industry bodies invest in shared processing facilities that miners can access at transparent rates while retaining ownership of their minerals.

“The challenge is not only building processing plants, but also ensuring smaller producers can access capacity on fair terms,” he said.

Without such measures, he warned that a small number of companies could end up controlling processing capacity and market access.

“If these companies also hold export rights, they could dictate prices to small-scale miners, creating what could become a predatory market that undermines the very people the mining sector is meant to empower,” he said.

Economic constraints

Economists say Zimbabwe’s processing ambitions will depend on whether the country can overcome longstanding challenges affecting mining and manufacturing.

United Kingdom-based Zimbabwean economist Chenayi Mutambasere told Al Jazeera that the policy faced obstacles including power shortages, expensive financing, weak transport infrastructure, foreign exchange constraints and limited access to processing technology.

“The ban should be more than a political slogan; it should be an industrial practical strategy,” she said.

Mutambasere said the government needed to support the policy with reliable electricity, investor incentives, skills development and clear implementation timelines.

She warned that restrictions introduced before the necessary support systems were in place could create unintended consequences.

“An abrupt ban where companies have invested in the sector may push the mining sector further underground, which could increase mineral leakage,” she said.

Government vision

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana told Al Jazeera that the policy was intended to ensure Zimbabwe gains more from its finite mineral resources.

“The government is implementing this beneficiation policy in our minerals for the growth of our economy and to create a lasting legacy that will be witnessed by future generations,” Mangwana said.

He said the policy applied not only to lithium but also to other strategic minerals, including platinum group metals such as palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium.

Zimbabwe’s push reflects a wider debate among resource-rich countries: whether restricting raw exports can build domestic industries without concentrating opportunities among a few large companies.

For smaller miners, the success of the strategy will depend not only on how much mineral processing takes place inside the country, but whether beneficiation creates broader participation or leaves only the biggest players able to compete.

Lucas said the goal should be to ensure that local processing expands opportunities across the mining sector rather than creating new barriers for smaller producers.

“Beneficiation should not become a barrier to participation. It should be an enabler of inclusive growth, industrial development and sustainable economic transformation,” Lucas said.