Airtel Nigeria has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge connectivity gaps and unlock new opportunities in the country.

The company restated this commitment during a recent high-level inspection tour of the Nxtra Data Centre that is being developed through Nxtra by Airtel Africa at Eko Atlantic, Lagos, Nigeria’s leading smart city, with the ambition to become the country’s data centre hub.

The inspection tour was led by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh and the Chief Executive Officer of Nxtraby Airtel Africa, Yashnath Issur, with the chairman of Eko Atlantic, Gabbi Massoud, the CEO of the lead Engineering firm, Design Group Limited, Bayo Odunlami and tech journalists.

The Nxtra Data Centre underwent a stringent design validation process and cleared the approval to proceed with construction from Eko Atlantic.

Commenting on the developments, Issur said the site visit was a milestone marker and an indication of the company’s commitment to delivering the world-class digital facility on time and ensuring that, ultimately, the investments deliver reliable, secure, world-class services for Nigeria and the rest of the continent.

“This NxtraData Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs. This data centre will deliver critical high multi-megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable a high-density environment. We are putting the infrastructure in place to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” he said.

The data centre, set to be the largest in Nigeria, is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38MW, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.

In his remarks, Balsingh reiterated that the data centre was progressing steadily toward the previously announced 2028 go-live date.

“Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda. We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” he said.

During the tour, stakeholders were ushered through key sections of the site, including piling zones, where required structural requirements have been tested. Technical teams provided briefings on infrastructure design, security architecture, redundancy systems, and sustainability measures being implemented to ensure reliability and operational excellence.

Strategically located close to major fibre routes and undersea cable landing stations, the Eko Atlantic data centre is designed to enhance Nigeria’s data sovereignty, reduce latency, and improve access to reliable digital services for private and enterprise customers, significantly boosting the country’s data hosting capacity and supporting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.