Nigeria’s rapidly accelerating interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) faces a fundamental infrastructure roadblock, as a top industry executive has revealed that not a single data centre in the country is currently equipped to support true, core AI workloads.
Speaking at the CEO Breakfast Roundtable organized by the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) in Lagos, Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Nigeria (formerly Medallion Communications), issued a stark warning: while the nation boasts a thriving AI ecosystem, the necessary physical foundation to host it locally is missing.
The Missing Link: High-Density Infrastructure
According to Nnamani, the existing data centres in Nigeria, though vital for cloud services and traditional enterprise hosting, were not designed for the extreme computational demands of modern AI.
“There is no data centre in Nigeria today that is AI-ready,” Nnamani stated emphatically. “Local AI companies are creating solutions, but they are hosting abroad because the infrastructure here cannot support the kind of computing AI requires.”
The key difference lies in the technical specifications required to run systems like Large Language Models (LLMs), deep learning clusters, and advanced inference engines:
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High-Density Workloads: AI demands Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and specialized processors that generate immense heat and require significantly more power per rack than traditional servers.
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Advanced Cooling Systems: Air cooling, common in current Nigerian data centres, is insufficient for these high-density racks. AI-ready facilities require liquid cooling or other advanced thermal management solutions to prevent equipment failure and ensure efficiency.
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Massive Power Availability: AI compute environments require a far more robust and stable power supply—an ongoing challenge for infrastructure operators in the country.
The Threat to Digital Sovereignty
Nigeria’s AI ecosystem is not small; Nnamani disclosed that a local AI association boasts over 300 members actively developing or selling AI solutions. The CEO warned that the lack of local, AI-ready hosting capabilities poses multiple risks:
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Data Sovereignty: By forcing local AI solutions to be hosted abroad, Nigeria risks losing control and governance over sensitive national data.
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Increased Latency: Hosting AI models outside the country introduces delays that hinder real-time applications critical for fintech and e-commerce.
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Capital Flight: The nation loses out on the substantial revenue and value creation associated with maintaining and operating high-performance computing infrastructure.
A Look at the Competition
Nnamani benchmarked Nigeria’s situation against the continent’s digital leader, citing Teraco (Digital Realty’s South African subsidiary) which recently built an AI-ready data centre equipped with liquid cooling and a massive IT load.
The comparison highlighted the scale of the challenge: the sheer IT load of one of Teraco’s facilities is reportedly larger than the combined capacity of all existing data centres in Nigeria.
The Way Forward: Global Partnership and Hyperscale
While the infrastructure gap is significant, Nnamani offered a pragmatic outlook, estimating that Nigeria is still two to three years away from having functional, true AI-ready data centres.
He stressed that the rapid development of this infrastructure will depend heavily on global operators with the technology, experience, and, crucially, the financial muscle to deploy high-performance computing environments. Digital Realty, through its ongoing expansion and planning for hyperscale facilities in Nigeria, is positioning itself to lead this next wave of development.
The message is clear: for Nigeria to fully realize its ambition of building a $1 trillion economy and cementing its place as an African AI leader, the focus must shift from merely building more data centres to building smarter, AI-optimized data centres capable of sustaining the computational demands of the future.
