For years, Microsoft’s Africa Development Centre was part of the story Kenya told about its place in the global tech industry. Hundreds of engineers could work on products used around the world without leaving Nairobi. Young developers could picture careers in global tech without having to move abroad. The country had another reason to believe its Silicon Savannah ambitions were within reach.
Now, that story is facing an uncomfortable test.
On Monday, October 12, employees at Microsoft’s Africa Development Centre (ADC) in Nairobi were reportedly informed that the company planned to close its engineering operations, according to CIO Africa, which cited an employee source. Microsoft has confirmed proposed changes to its Kenyan engineering department as part of a wider global restructuring, but has not explicitly confirmed that the entire centre will close.
“These are proposed changes that are part of the global changes within Microsoft,” a company spokesperson told CIO Africa. Microsoft said it would continue operating in Kenya and supporting customers across the region. The company has not disclosed the number of employees affected or provided a timeline for the changes.
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For Mbugua Njihia, a Kenyan tech venture builder, the news is not necessarily a reason to panic. He understands why people might take the reported closure personally, but he is wary of treating a multinational’s presence as proof that an ecosystem is healthy.
“As a technology executive, I understand that these decisions are ultimately made against a backdrop of market dynamics, strategic priorities and commercial considerations, some of which are in the public domain and others that we may never fully understand,” he said.
“I would be cautious about speculating on Microsoft’s specific motivations without knowing the full picture.”
That caution is worth keeping in mind. Microsoft has not publicly attributed the proposed changes in Nairobi to artificial intelligence, operating costs or any specific commercial problem. But the reported development has brought fresh attention to the future of engineering jobs and the assumptions that have shaped Kenya’s technology ambitions.
Microsoft opened its Africa Development Centre in Nairobi and Lagos in 2019. The company described the centres as a combined $100 million investment over five years, with plans to recruit 100 engineers initially and expand to 500 across both locations by 2023. The idea was to create products locally for global markets, while building engineering careers and technical capacity on the continent.
By 2022, the Nairobi centre had grown to more than 450 full-time employees across software engineering, machine learning, data science and other fields.
Then Lagos closed.
In May 2024, Microsoft announced the closure of its Nigerian development centre, citing routine organisational adjustments, while maintaining that it would continue operating in Nigeria. At the time, the company had more than 200 engineers in Lagos and over 500 in Nairobi, according to Reuters. If the current plans bring an end to Nairobi’s engineering operation, the two centres that once represented a major bet on African talent will have both disappeared.
Read also: Microsoft to invest $1 billion in Kenya to bridge digital divide in East Africa
For Njihia, however, Kenya’s innovation story did not begin when Microsoft arrived, and it should not end with the company’s departure.
“I would challenge the premise that our innovation story began when multinationals started setting up shop here. Far from it. These companies came because they saw the groundswell of talent, innovation and entrepreneurial energy that was already taking shape.”
He believes the next chapter depends on whether African businesses can turn that talent into commercially sustainable companies.
“The real measure of Silicon Savannah is not how many global tech companies have offices here, but how many globally competitive tech businesses we can build from here,” he said.
That is an ambitious proposition when the immediate question is where hundreds of experienced engineers might find their next jobs.
Njihia worries that local companies may struggle to absorb the affected professionals at comparable levels of pay and professional opportunity. The centre employed highly skilled engineers, project managers, scrum masters and other specialists whose experience could strengthen African tech businesses. Losing access to that pool would be a missed opportunity, he said.
“We should not merely be a market that supplies talent to global tech companies; we should also be a market that builds the companies capable of employing that talent at scale.”
But there is another worry among Kenyan engineers, one that extends beyond the fate of a single office.
An industry source who requested anonymity believes the reported changes fit into a wider shift in how tech companies value engineering work. The source attributed the cuts to AI-driven efficiency and argued that companies are reducing staff costs as they redirect resources towards AI investment.
“The dream is fading for all engineers globally. Not just Kenya,” the source said.
“Tech jobs aren’t safe in Kenya. Many rote development tasks are being taken over by AI. That’s the real headline.”
These are the source’s views, not a confirmed explanation for Microsoft’s decision. Still, they capture an anxiety that the reported closure has intensified. If global tech companies can develop software with smaller teams and more capable AI tools, the demand for some traditional engineering tasks could change. Kenyan engineers would be competing in a market where the value of technical skills, the number of available roles and the expectations of employers may all shift.
The anonymous source knows people connected to the centre and described the mood among them as negative. For those who lose their jobs, the debate about Silicon Savannah’s future is not abstract. It is about finding another role, maintaining a standard of living and deciding what comes next.
Njihia says the priority should be to help that talent find productive work, including within Kenyan and African companies that want to compete for international business. He also argues that local businesses need better conditions to grow, from predictable policies and regulatory clarity to manageable operating costs.
Multinationals should be welcome, he said, but their presence cannot substitute for businesses that can survive on their own merits.