Kenyan tech firm Siscom has unveiled a new investment platform that allows ordinary citizens, saccos and small businesses to co-own high-performance servers, in a bid to localise cloud infrastructure and drive down digital costs in the country.
Dubbed Siscom Nodes, the platform enables individuals to invest between sh 20,000 and sh 2 million in physical servers hosted in secure tier 3 data centres. These servers—leased out to banks, fintechs, AI labs, government projects and developers—generate quarterly returns for investors through rental fees.
The Nairobi-based infrastructure company says the innovation could revolutionise Kenya’s role in Africa’s digital economy by shifting ownership of critical tech infrastructure into local hands.
“Kenya has an annual cloud infrastructure funding gap of nearly $1 billion. That figure could triple by 2030,” said Derrick Gakuu, Siscom’s Chief of Strategy. “We’ve built great apps, but we’ve ignored the roads that keep them running—cloud, compute, and data clusters.”
Despite Kenya’s status as a tech innovation hub, experts warn the country remains largely a consumer of foreign-built digital infrastructure, with startups paying up to 60 per cent more for cloud services than peers in Asia or the West. The World Bank and IFC have flagged this as a barrier to startup growth and a contributor to high failure rates.
To address this, Siscom is tapping into local capital through a crowd-ownership model. “Just like you’d invest in a matatu or real estate, now you can own part of the cloud infrastructure and earn from it,” explained Nashon Mbithi, Siscom’s Partnerships Lead.
The firm manages all technical operations, compliance and customer leasing, allowing investors to earn without needing IT expertise. “We handle the heavy lifting. Investors simply co-own the infrastructure,” said Gakuu.
The rollout comes amid growing concerns around data sovereignty and a push by the government to create one million digital jobs. Siscom believes its model could create up to 10,000 direct tech jobs and an additional one million indirect jobs in fields like AI, app development and digital media.
Kenya currently has fewer than 20 data centres compared to over 5,000 in the U.S. “If we don’t change that, we’ll always be digital tenants instead of landlords,” Gakuu warned.
Siscom’s initiative joins a growing wave of investment in African cloud infrastructure. The International Finance Corporation recently committed $100 million to data firm Raxio, while Microsoft and UAE-based G42 announced a $1 billion geothermal-powered data centre partnership in Kenya.
However, Siscom executives argue that local ownership is key. “This is about access and equity,” said Mbithi. “For the first time, a university student or chama group can co-own the backbone of digital Kenya.”
The company is also developing the country’s first locally owned GPU cluster to support high-demand artificial intelligence workloads. “Our dream is a Kenyan-built AI Factory where our researchers no longer have to go abroad to build the future,” Gakuu said.
Siscom will start onboarding clients across fintech, e-commerce, public sector, and AI development this quarter, with plans to expand server locations across East Africa.
Kenyan tech firm Siscom has unveiled a new investment platform that allows ordinary citizens, saccos and small businesses to co-own high-performance servers, in a bid to localise cloud infrastructure and drive down digital costs in the country.
Dubbed Siscom Nodes, the platform enables individuals to invest between sh 20,000 and sh 2 million in physical servers hosted in secure tier 3 data centres. These servers—leased out to banks, fintechs, AI labs, government projects and developers—generate quarterly returns for investors through rental fees.
The Nairobi-based infrastructure company says the innovation could revolutionise Kenya’s role in Africa’s digital economy by shifting ownership of critical tech infrastructure into local hands.
“Kenya has an annual cloud infrastructure funding gap of nearly $1 billion. That figure could triple by 2030,” said Derrick Gakuu, Siscom’s Chief of Strategy. “We’ve built great apps, but we’ve ignored the roads that keep them running—cloud, compute, and data clusters.”
Despite Kenya’s status as a tech innovation hub, experts warn the country remains largely a consumer of foreign-built digital infrastructure, with startups paying up to 60
per cent
more for cloud services than peers in Asia or the West. The World Bank and IFC have flagged this as a barrier to startup growth and a contributor to high failure rates.
To address this,
Siscom is tapping into local capital through a crowd-ownership model. “Just like you’d invest in a matatu or real estate, now you can own part of the cloud infrastructure and earn from it,” explained Nashon Mbithi, Siscom’s Partnerships Lead.
The firm manages all technical operations, compliance and customer leasing, allowing investors to earn without needing IT expertise. “We handle the heavy lifting. Investors simply co-own the infrastructure,” said Gakuu.
The rollout comes
amid growing concerns around data sovereignty and a push by the government to create one million digital jobs. Siscom believes its model could create up to 10,000 direct tech jobs and an additional one million indirect jobs in fields like AI, app development and digital media.
Kenya currently has fewer than 20 data centres compared to over 5,000 in the U.S. “If we don’t change that, we’ll always be digital tenants instead of landlords,” Gakuu warned.
Siscom’s initiative joins a growing wave of investment in African cloud infrastructure. The International Finance Corporation recently committed $100 million to data firm Raxio, while Microsoft and UAE-based G42 announced a $1 billion geothermal-powered data centre partnership in Kenya.
However,
Siscom executives argue that local ownership is key. “This is about access and equity,” said Mbithi. “For the first time, a university student or chama group can co-own the backbone of digital Kenya.”
The company is also developing the country’s first locally owned GPU cluster to support high-demand artificial intelligence workloads. “Our dream is a Kenyan-built AI Factory where our researchers no longer have to go abroad to build the future,” Gakuu said.
Siscom will start onboarding clients across fintech, e-commerce, public sector, and AI development this quarter, with plans to expand server locations across East Africa.
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By Lillian Mutavi