Countries / Africa
Rwanda
Rwanda defaults to keeping personal data in the country and has just approved a national AI agency with a national data centre.
Law 058/2021 requires personal data to be stored in Rwanda unless the regulator issues a certificate, with standard contractual clauses issued in February 2024 for transfers. The National AI Policy dates from April 2023, and on 18 June 2026 Cabinet approved a National AI Agency to be supported by a national data centre and a governed data sandbox. For someone seeking compute, in-country hosting is the safe default, and capacity is small.
AI policy and activity
The 2023 policy created a Responsible AI Office under MINICT. The Rwanda AI Scaling Hub is reported to have about 17.8 million dollars of Gates Foundation support.
Power and grid
No Rwanda-specific grid constraint was found in the sources read.
Data centres and compute
| Site | Where | Status | Notes and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Africa Data Centres Kigali Africa Data Centres (Cassava Technologies) | Kigali | Planned | 2 MW facility announced November 2022 with groundbreaking planned for Q1 2023. Current status not confirmed by the sources read. (source) |
Rules and programmes
| Instrument | Kind | Status | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Data Protection Law (Law 058/2021) | Law | In force from 1 October 2021 | Digest page. Local storage unless a certificate is obtained; transfers by authorisation, consent or listed exceptions. Day of month not confirmed. |
| National AI Policy | Policy | In force from 1 April 2023 | Released April 2023. |
| National AI Agency approval | Programme | Proposed | Cabinet decision of 18 June 2026. Agency to be backed by a national data centre and data sandbox; no capacity figures given. |
Checked on 2 October 2026 and due for review by 1 January 2027. Many sources are trade press or law-firm summaries rather than official texts, and statuses such as reported or unconfirmed are shown as the source gives them. This is a summary, not legal advice. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us.