No AI-ready data centre in-country, says expert
As Nigeria focuses on attaining a $1 trillion economy by 2030, 72 edge data centres with at least two in each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, will be required.
  
This is necessary to power the economy and make it digitally ready to compete and create opportunities for the citizens.
  
This was the submission of the Chief Executive Officer, Digital Realty Nigeria, Ikechukwu Nnamani, when he was hosted by technology reporters at a breakfast session in Lagos, yesterday.
   
Nnamani’s proposal underscored an urgent need for decentralisation and a massive expansion of the country’s digital capacity.
  
The Guardian checks showed that despite being Africa’s largest Information and Communication Technology (ICT) market, over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s data infrastructure is concentrated in Lagos, serving only about 10 per cent of the country’s population.
  
While the exact number of data centre facilities can vary slightly depending on whether the count includes only major, operational colocation facilities (like Tier III certified sites) or also smaller, private/limited-use facilities, operational facilities, however, range between 16 and 22, where there are 19 in Lagos and three in FCT.
  
Capacity is often stated as being around 30MW presently, though one report projected it to be 56.1MW in 2025, industry sources revealed that about 13 data centres were in the pipeline to complement infrastructure from players including MDX1, Rack Centre, OADC, MTN, Airtel, Digital Reality (formerly Medallion), Galaxy Backbone, among others.
  
Nnamani emphasised that this high concentration in Lagos severely limits the country’s ability to achieve true digital competitiveness and deliver inclusive connectivity.
  
“Lagos houses most of the country’s data infrastructure, yet this represents only 10 per cent of Nigeria’s true digital capacity,” Nnamani stated. “To compete globally and support real-time data processing and service delivery across all state capitals, we need a minimum of 72 edge data centres.”
   
According to him, Edge data centres are crucial for reducing latency, the delay before a transfer of data begins following an instruction for its transfer, which is vital for real-time applications like e-commerce, digital finance (FinTech), and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI).   
   
He even pointed out that it is cheaper to transmit data between Nigeria and London than between Lagos and Abuja, highlighting the infrastructure gap in regional connectivity.
  
The Digital Reality boss said that compared to cities in developed economies, which can host over 30 data centres, Nigeria is far behind. He stressed that to compound issues, “the country lacks an AI-ready data centre and this is crucial to powering this economy, especially as new technologies emerge, including AI.
  
“We hope that in about three years from now, we will be able to say we have AI-ready data centres. Players in the industry are working on that,” he stated.
  
According to him, it will be difficult to put a value on Nigeria’s data centre market because it is largely owned by private companies, some of which are listed and would require approval from stakeholders before releasing certain statistics.
  
He, however, said based on the number of data centres that may be in the country, “one can estimate, especially when you compare those centres that are lower, whose construction alone could gulp about $10 million, while those in the upper end could go for as much as $15 million.”
  
The tech guru submitted that the greatest challenge to running an efficient data centre lies in power (electricity); hence, the need for designated power plants, where he claimed operators were already investing N100 million individually to bridge the grid gap.
   
The opportunity to grow the particular segment of the economy will require transmission networks, increased content creation, and pushing of national policies, among others, he submitted.
  
He said that building expansive data centre networks should be viewed not only as an infrastructure project, but also as a fundamental step towards digital sovereignty, enabling data localisation, improving service delivery, and unlocking the country’s full potential for digital innovation and job creation.