May 22, 2026
By Prince Osuagwu
Nigeria’s data centre market is already valued at nearly $300 million, with analysts projecting explosive expansion over the next five years. Yet beneath the impressive numbers lies an uncomfortable truth: much of the country’s digital future still runs on infrastructure sitting thousands of kilometres away.
For every AI request processed abroad, experts say Nigeria pays an invisible tax in latency, lost revenue, data sovereignty, and strategic dependence.
In practical terms, many of the country’s existing data facilities were built for an earlier internet era and later retrofitted to support modern cloud operations, rather than designed from the ground up for the punishing demands of artificial intelligence.
