Despite the global surge in Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption, Nigeria’s data centre ecosystem is still not equipped to support true, large-scale AI workloads, a gap industry experts say could slow the country’s competitiveness in the emerging digital economy.
This reality was highlighted by the CEO of Digital Realty Nigeria, Engr. Ike Nnamani, during the maiden edition of the NITRA CEO Breakfast Roundtable. Nnamani explained that while Nigeria currently boasts data centre infrastructure capable of supporting cloud services, none of the existing facilities were built with core AI applications in mind.
According to him, Nigeria already has a vibrant AI community, with over 300 professionals actively building tools, selling services, and experimenting with advanced technologies, yet the country lacks the infrastructure required to run the heavy computational demand of modern AI systems.
“Core AI needs a completely different class of infrastructure,” he said. “We’re talking about facilities designed from the ground up with liquid cooling, massive power capacity, and specialised hardware. That’s not what we have today.”
Nnamani noted that global operators like Digital Realty and Equinix are better positioned to deliver these next-generation AI-ready data centers due to their expertise and financial muscle. He cited TerraCo, Digital Realty’s South African subsidiary, as an example, a company that recently built one of Africa’s largest AI-ready facilities, complete with advanced cooling and high IT load capacity.
He estimates that Nigeria is still at least two to three years away from having such infrastructure locally. Until then, most core AI workloads will continue to be processed outside the country.
Beyond AI readiness, Nnamani also spoke about Digital Realty’s ongoing investments in Nigeria following its rebrand from Medallion Communications. He revealed that several infrastructure upgrades, including internal road construction, were necessary to support subsea cable projects and ensure uninterrupted data traffic into the country.
He emphasised that these projects, though unusual for a global data centre operator, were critical for Nigeria’s digital transformation and have contributed to job creation and community development.
Digital Realty, he added, is already planning additional facilities in Nigeria, including hyperscale data centres capable of supporting the next wave of AI and high-compute applications.
