Today, history risks repeating itself. As the world enters an era defined by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the rapid expansion of digital technologies has triggered what Julius Okoth, writing in Global Voices, describes as a global "scramble" for infrastructure.
Like previous waves of industrialisation and resource extraction, technology companies are searching for countries with the land, energy and natural resources needed to power the world's digital economy. Increasingly, Africa has become that destination.
Governments across the continent are embracing digital transformation as a pathway to economic growth. Investments in data centres, cloud computing and AI promise jobs, foreign investment and technological advancement.
Kenya, in particular, has positioned itself as the ‘Silicon Savannah’, leveraging its strategic location, digital ecosystem and connectivity through undersea fibre-optic cables to become East Africa's technology hub.
Yet behind the promise of innovation lies an uncomfortable reality: the infrastructure powering our digital future depends on one of our most finite resources: water.
The ‘cloud’ has long been portrayed as something weightless and invisible. In reality, it is anything but that. Every AI prompt, streamed movie, online payment and cloud-stored document relies on vast data centres housing thousands of servers operating around the clock. These servers generate enormous amounts of heat and require substantial quantities of freshwater to remain operational.
As AI becomes more sophisticated and the demand for digital services accelerates, so too does its water footprint. Unesco estimates that AI could consume between 4.2 and 6.6 billion cubic metres of water annually by 2027; a volume exceeding the annual freshwater withdrawals of several countries.
What was once a niche environmental concern is fast becoming a global challenge to water governance.
This begs the question: as Africa races to become a global digital powerhouse, are we paying enough attention to the environmental costs hidden behind the cloud?
The timing could not be more significant. Africa is pursuing digital transformation at the very moment it has declared water security a continental priority. The African Union's Africa Water Vision 2063 and the 2026 AU theme on sustainable water availability and sanitation recognise water as the foundation of health, food security, climate resilience and sustainable development.
Globally, Sustainable Development Goal 6 commits states to ensuring access to clean water and sanitation for all. The challenge is ensuring that Africa's digital ambitions reinforce these commitments rather than undermine them.
According to Water.org, approximately 19 million Kenyans lack access to basic water services. For many households, accessing water already means coping with rationing, unreliable municipal supplies, travelling long distances to collect it or bearing the added financial burden of purchasing water.
Climate change is also intensifying droughts, placing even greater pressure on rivers, aquifers and public water systems. Against this backdrop, the arrival of water-intensive digital infrastructure raises difficult questions about how scarce resources should be allocated.
Kenya's constitution recognises this reality. Article 43 guarantees every person the right to clean and safe water in adequate quantities. Yet it leaves one crucial question unanswered: what exactly is "adequate", and who decides?
While the government determines what constitutes sufficient water for households, a single hyperscale data centre may consume hundreds of thousands or even millions of litres of water each day to cool its servers.
The issue is not whether technology should be denied water but whether the allocation of finite water resources is transparent, equitable and consistent with the state’s constitutional obligations.
Kenya has already experienced its own warning. A proposed $1 billion (Sh130 billion) Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria was halted after concerns emerged that it would require approximately one gigawatt of electricity, almost one-third of Kenya's installed electricity generation capacity.
Public debate understandably focused on energy. Yet the same project should have prompted equally urgent questions about water. If one facility can expose the limits of our electricity infrastructure, what might its long-term implications be for an already water-stressed country?
None of this is an argument against technological progress. Kenya and other African countries should not be excluded from the opportunities presented by AI or the digital economy.
The question is not whether we should pursue digital transformation, but what kind of digital future we are building. The digital economy must not become another chapter in the longer history of extraction.
