Silicon Elsewhere

Nairobi, Global China, and the Promise of Techno-Capital

Andrea Pollio

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English

University of California Press
13 January 2026

International relations; Information technology industries; Communications engineering & telecommunications

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Heralded as Africa's ""Silicon Savannah""—a cradle of innovation—Nairobi has become a technology and innovation capital for Kenya and for the continent at large. With a national strategy that has prioritized digital technology for the last two decades, many Chinese digital champions, smaller startups, and investors have since chosen Nairobi as their African landing pad. Mapping the interface between Nairobi's innovation scene and China's digital presence there, Silicon Elsewhere tells a unique story of ingenuity and adaptation, failure and speculation, and hopefulness and pragmatism. Andrea Pollio's ethnography draws on interviews with cautious venture capitalists, renegade entrepreneurs, dedicated bureaucrats, and ambitious data scientists to explore the competing meanings of contemporary techno-capitalism. Moving between leafy coworking spaces and the temperature-controlled rooms of brand-new data centers, Pollio locates Nairobi among the experimental capitals, not peripheries, of techno-capitalism in the early twenty-first century.

By: Andrea Pollio
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780520413085
ISBN 10: 0520413083
Pages: 238
Publication Date: 13 January 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Contents Preface Lists of Abbreviations, Chinese Pinyin Terms, and Kiswahili and Sheng Terms Introduction: The Silicon Savannah's Beijing Connection 1. Silicon States of Development 2. Machines of Data Frontiers 3. Platforms of Algorithmic Suturing 4. Microgeopolitics of Standards 5. Labors of Investability 6. Ethnographies of Techno-Optimism Coda: Thinking Technology Elsewhere, and Otherwise Notes Bibliography Index

Andrea Pollio is Assistant Professor of Political and Economic Geography at the Department of Urban and Regional Studies of the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, and Research Associate at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, South Africa.