Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Nigeria, Engr. Ike Nnamani, have said that data centres in the country are still years away from being able to support core Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.
Speaking at the CEO Breakfast Roundtable organised by the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA), Nnamani said that while local data centres currently support cloud services, none is equipped for full-scale AI infrastructure.
“The closest we have today in terms of data centre infrastructure are facilities that can run cloud services. But when it comes to core AI, none of the data centres in Nigeria was designed for that,” he said.
Nnamani noted that despite the infrastructure gap, Nigeria’s AI ecosystem is expanding rapidly.
He disclosed that over 300 members of a local AI association are actively developing or selling AI solutions and leveraging global AI platforms for their operations.
However, deploying compute-heavy AI systems such as large language models, deep learning clusters, or advanced inference engines requires purpose-built facilities that can handle high-density workloads, advanced cooling systems, and significant power availability.
“The question we must ask is: what is the plan to build AI-enabled data centres, and who has the technology and financial capacity to make it happen?” he said.
Nnamani emphasised that building AI-ready data centres will depend heavily on global operators with experience deploying high-performance computing environments.
“That is where global players like Digital Realty come in. These companies have already implemented AI infrastructure in their facilities around the world, and importantly, they have the financial muscle to do it,” he said.
Nnamani referenced Digital Realty’s South African subsidiary, Teraco, which recently built an AI-ready data centre equipped with liquid cooling systems and high-density racks.
“One of their data centres is bigger than all the data centres in Nigeria combined in terms of IT load,” he said, highlighting the scale difference between both markets.
Looking ahead, Nnamani said Digital Realty is preparing to build additional facilities in Nigeria, including much larger hyperscale data centres.
Despite the lack of supporting infrastructure, the Nigerian government, through the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, have been aggressively pushing AI agenda in the country.
According to a recent report, ‘State of AI Policy in Africa 2025’, while Nigeria leads West Africa in AI adoption, its ambitions are at risk due to a major funding shortfall.
The report warns that despite leading AI policy development in West Africa, Nigeria’s progress could stall without stronger domestic funding.