This archive report was first published on 8 November 2019.
On Friday, President Kenyatta met with visiting executives from Amazon Web Services (AWS) at State House in Nairobi, a follow-up to their discussion during his visit to Washington in August last year.
Just hours before, President Uhuru had signed into law the Data Protection Bill 2019, presented to him by National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi.
During the meeting, AWS Vice President Teresa Carlson applauded Kenya for passing the new data law, paving the way for the organization's investment in the country.
Carlson revealed Amazon's plans to set up an 'edge location' in Nairobi, where end-users can access services located on Amazon Web Services.
"The new data law paves the way for our investment, enabling Nairobi to join other global cities as an edge location," Carlson said.
President Kenyatta welcomed the move, citing Kenya's necessary infrastructure and educated young population as key factors in its digital growth.
"I am delighted to welcome AWS's investment in Kenya. The launch of Amazon CloudFront will put us at the forefront of accelerated innovation," Kenyatta said.
"Kenya is an innovator in digital financial services in Africa. Having advanced cloud infrastructure in the country will support our ability to flourish as a nation and reach our potential as one of Africa's fastest-growing digital economies," he added.
President Uhuru indicated that Amazon's investment will help strengthen Kenya's position as a regional business hub.
"This is key for us especially now that we are going digital on almost everything. We are currently building the digital infrastructure and we welcome any support that we can get from you," he told the Amazon team.
