Kenya pours fresh $26.1 million into long-delayed Nairobi tech hub

Over a decade after it was first conceived as a flagship of Kenya’s industrial modernisation drive, a stalled tech hub in Nairobi has been handed a new contractor backed with fresh funding, continuing the delay of a key innovation pillar mooted in 2013. 

The Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI) techno-centre, pitched as a cutting-edge innovation campus complete with research laboratories, testing facilities and commercial space, has languished for years amid funding gaps, contractor disputes and shifting completion timelines.

The project has received an additional KES 3.4 billion ($26.1 million), pushing its total cost to KES 8.56 billion ($65.9 million), about 57% higher than the original KES 5.9 billion ($45.4 million) budget, according to procurement disclosures by the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA), the implementing agency.

KeNHA has awarded the main construction tender to Kingsley Construction Company for KES 2.66 billion ($20.4 million). The firm is expected to complete the project by February 2028.

The project is emblematic of a pattern across Kenya’s flagship innovation projects, including Konza Technopolis—a technology city being built 64km south of Nairobi—which have been slowed by delays, underfunding and contractor disputes, blunting their economic impact and denying taxpayers the timely benefits they were meant to deliver.

The South B hub was originally slated for completion in March 2016, with an initial construction cost of KES 3.9 billion ($30 million). It was envisioned as a state-of-the-art facility that would anchor Kenya’s ambitions to transition into a middle-income, innovation-led economy, housing some of the country’s top scientific and engineering talent.

Deadlines slipped repeatedly—to November 2022 and beyond—as costs rose and financing faltered. By January 2024, Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu reported that taxpayers had already spent KES 5 billion ($38.5 million) on the incomplete complex.

“The project has stalled due to financial constraints and pending bills owed to the contractor,” Gathungu said in her report in 2025. “Value for money has not been realised.”

In 2024, KIRDI’s board briefly explored completing the project through a public-private partnership before abandoning the plan in favour of additional Treasury funding. 

Construction stalled altogether in 2022 when the original contractor abandoned the site over unpaid dues, leaving behind a half-finished structure.

The design of the complex includes laboratories, lecture halls, showrooms and an amphitheatre. It is also expected to include commercial spaces, restaurants, a three-star hotel, and multi-level basement parking.