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Microsoft has told staff at its Africa Development Centre (ADC) in Nairobi that the engineering operation will shut down, ending a seven-year effort to build a global product-development base in Kenya. Employees were informed on Monday, October 12, 2026. On the same day, Information and Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo met a Microsoft delegation to discuss the impact on local jobs and on investor confidence in the country's technology sector.
Microsoft has not publicly confirmed the closure in those terms. A company spokesperson described the changes as "proposed" and tied them to a wider global restructuring, while saying Microsoft will keep employees in Kenya and continue serving customers in the region. The company has not disclosed how many jobs will go, when the centre will stop operating, or whether affected engineers will be offered roles elsewhere in the company.
What Microsoft has said
According to CIO Africa, a source who worked at the centre said employees were told the engineering centre would close. The same outlet quoted a Microsoft spokesperson as saying: "These are proposed changes that are part of the global changes within Microsoft." The company said it would continue to have staff in Kenya and support the country's digital transformation ambitions.
The company's statement says the changes have affected the engineering department in Kenya but does not use the word closure, and does not deny one either. In effect, the staff account and the corporate statement describe the same event in different terms, and the gap between them has not been resolved. Microsoft has not publicly described the Nairobi centre as closed, and that the staff claims reported by several outlets remain unconfirmed by the company.
The government meeting
Kabogo published an account of his meeting on X. The Microsoft delegation was led by Jeff Bullwinkel, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Corporate, External and Legal Affairs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, together with the Microsoft East Africa team led by Angela Ng'ang'a, who was named East Africa country lead in August.
The Cabinet Secretary said the talks covered the adoption of artificial intelligence in government, digitisation of public services, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure and skills programmes delivered through universities and other institutions. He added that Microsoft has supported the development of Kenya's National AI Policy and the wider innovation ecosystem.
On the closure, 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 at the Nairobi engineering centre and sustaining investor confidence. He also reaffirmed the government's commitment to a competitive and transparent investment environment. According to Kabogo, Microsoft restated its long-term commitment to Kenya, and the Ministry and the company will develop a joint action plan. No timeline, job figures or specific measures were published.
It is not clear from public information whether the meeting was convened because of the closure, or whether it had been scheduled earlier.
From a $100 million promise to a winding down
Microsoft announced the Africa Development Centres in May 2019, with Nairobi and Lagos as the first two sites, backed by a planned investment of $100 million over five years. The Nairobi centre officially opened in March 2022 with more than 450 engineers and product leaders, and Catherine Muraga took over as managing director that June.
The work done there was product engineering rather than customer support. The centre's teams covered identity systems (the infrastructure behind signing in to Microsoft accounts), Microsoft 365, Windows and devices, security and developer tools. The same building in Westlands, Dunhill Towers, also houses Microsoft Research Africa and the Microsoft Garage. Microsoft has not said whether those units are affected.
Lagos moved first. In May 2024, Microsoft said it had decided to close the Africa Development Centre in Nigeria, which opened in 2022, and that some employees there would be affected. The spokesperson at the time described workforce adjustments as a regular part of managing the business, and the company said it would continue operating in Nigeria. Reuters reported that in December 2022, Microsoft President Brad Smith had cited more than 200 engineers in Lagos and more than 500 in Nairobi. With the Lagos centre gone, Nairobi was the last of the two original hubs.
When the Lagos closure was announced, Microsoft said it would not affect its Kenyan operations. Nairobi employees say they had seen signs of trouble for some time.
How many jobs are at stake
Between 400 and 500 engineering jobs are estimated to be at risk following plans to close the Nairobi engineering unit. Because official internal headcounts remain unreleased, exact figures vary across different reporting methods and timelines.
The global restructuring
The Nairobi decision follows several rounds of cuts at Microsoft. The company cut about 4,800 roles in July 2026, roughly 2.1 percent of its global workforce, mostly in sales and Xbox. The internal memo at the time said engineering teams would adjust their structure and priorities and that more changes were coming. A further 268 Xbox jobs were cut on September 22, and Microsoft shed about 6,000 jobs in May 2025.
Microsoft has not given a reason for closing the Nairobi centre, and that no public evidence directly links the closure to the global cuts, although the company's own spokesperson has framed it that way.
Accounts from former staff
A September 23 LinkedIn post by Kipkorir Arap Kirui, a former ADC senior product manager now at Google. He wrote about what current employees had told him: that near the end of the quarter, staff were offered a choice between a performance improvement plan and a "voluntary" exit, and that those who took the plan reportedly had six weeks to improve. Some accounts also claimed employees were restricted from showing separation agreements to independent lawyers. All of this is described as secondhand and unverified, and said Microsoft has not responded to it.
Policy backdrop
The closure lands as Kenya moves to formalise its approach to artificial intelligence. The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy opened the draft Kenya Artificial Intelligence and Other Emerging Technologies Policy 2026 for public comment on July 28, with submissions closing on August 4. The draft follows the Kenya Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025 to 2030.
The draft requires AI platform providers to ensure data generated in Kenya is governed under Kenyan law, and proposes a National AI and Other Emerging Technologies Council and a Kenya AI Safety Institute. Law firm Bowmans noted in a July 31 analysis that the draft has broad extraterritorial reach and does not itself create binding obligations. The scope described by Khusoko extends to foreign companies whose AI systems are used in Kenya, cloud providers, model developers and data annotation firms serving the Kenyan market.
Kabogo's account of the Microsoft meeting listed support for the National AI Policy as one of the areas of cooperation. Neither side has said how the engineering closure will affect that support.
Public reaction
The announcement drew immediate commentary on X. In a post quoting Kabogo's statement, user @tingaramba argued that Kenya does not need Microsoft representatives to adopt AI, saying the country has capable, unemployed young people who can do the work, and claiming that frontier large language models are trained by Kenyans. The user also accused officials of engaging large technology companies to justify public spending. The post offered no supporting figures, and the claims about model training and public spending are the commenter's own assertions rather than established findings. Kabogo's statement did not address them.
The reaction speaks to a point the ministry itself raised in the meeting: keeping experienced engineers employed in Kenya. How many of the affected staff remain in the local market, and on what terms they leave, depends on details Microsoft has yet to release.
For now, the most complete account of the situation comes from the employees who were present on Monday. Microsoft has said the changes are proposed, the government has said an action plan will follow, and neither has put a number or a date on the record.
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