Employees at Microsoft’s Africa Development Centre (ADC) in Nairobi were told on Monday, 12 October, that the engineering centre will close. The news comes as the company undergoes a broader global restructuring. A Microsoft spokesperson described the changes as proposed and part of wider shifts within the company. The spokesperson said they had affected Kenya’s engineering department, and that Microsoft would keep operating in the country and supporting customers in the region. The company has not explicitly confirmed or denied that the Nairobi centre itself is closing.
Microsoft has also not said why the centre is affected. People familiar with the matter point to several possible factors, but no public evidence directly links the closure to the company’s global cuts. The scale of the job losses is equally unclear. Microsoft has not disclosed how many people work at the centre, when their jobs will end, or what happens to them next.
The reported closure ends one of the company’s most prominent engineering projects in Africa. Microsoft announced the Africa Development Centre in May 2019, with Nairobi and Lagos as its first two hubs, and pledged more than $100 million to develop African tech talent. The Nairobi news follows the shutdown of the Lagos centre in 2024, when Microsoft said the Nairobi operation had not been affected. Nairobi had also seen earlier cuts, with product managers and software engineers let go in early 2023 as Microsoft reduced its workforce worldwide. Even so, the circumstances of the Lagos closure do not, on their own, establish the reasons for the Nairobi decision.
The Kenyan government has responded publicly. ICT Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo said Microsoft briefed him on its evolving operations in Kenya in the context of its global restructuring. He said he stressed the importance of retaining local talent, protecting jobs and sustaining investor confidence in the country’s technology sector. He added that his ministry and Microsoft will draw up a joint action plan.
For now, several questions remain open: whether the closure is final, how many people will lose their jobs, when they will leave, and what Microsoft’s engineering presence in Kenya will look like afterwards.
