Nigeria's AI Boom: Why Data Centres Are Not Enough

Nigeria is witnessing a billion-dollar AI infrastructure boom with new data centres in Lekki and Ikeja, backed by Equinix and MTN. However, true digital sovereignty requires matching this hardware investment with deep funding for Nigerian engineers, advanced AI training, and local startup ownership to prevent the country from becoming just a server host for foreign cloud providers.

What does true tech sovereignty mean for Nigeria?

Cranes are up over Lekki and Ikeja. Naija is building its first dedicated AI data centres. Equinix, MTN, and their partners are dropping close to a billion dollars on this infrastructure. That is a massive move. It says Nigeria is stepping into the global AI economy, and we are not playing small.

But let us keep it real. After years building enterprise software, digital payments, and fintech, I know one truth. Infrastructure is just the opening act, never the main event. You do not become an AI heavyweight just because you own the most expensive computers. You become a leader when your people, your engineers, and your entrepreneurs turn that computing power into products that solve real problems.

Look at what we did at Interswitch. I led the development of the Financial Inclusion System (IFIS), a mobile platform that brought agency banking to over one million unbanked Nigerians. We were not just chasing clout or building tech for the vibes. We solved a real problem. How do you give a trader in Kano or a farmer in Benue secure financial services when the nearest bank is hours away? The answer was never just code. It was understanding the reality of our people.

That lesson carried me through building enterprise platforms at AppRiver, OLI Systems, and Andela, right down to my own consultancy, Retani Consults. Technology creates possibilities, but people create value.

Are Nigeria's new data centres just hosting foreign cloud providers?

Right now, much of this new infrastructure is designed to give multinational cloud providers computing capacity while keeping AI workloads and sensitive data inside Nigerian borders. Data sovereignty matters. We absolutely must process our critical national data at home. But sovereignty over infrastructure is not the same as sovereignty over innovation.

A world-class data centre does not magically spawn world-class AI companies. It does not teach a dev how to fine-tune language models, deploy secure inference pipelines, or build AI products that understand Nigerian languages, markets, and behaviours. Those skills come from deliberately investing in our own people.

Can AI tools replace experienced Nigerian engineers?

Today, AI tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot are part of my daily engineering workflow. They speed up development, cutting the time between an idea and a working product. But they have not replaced experienced engineers. If anything, they make experience more valuable.

The competitive edge is no longer typing code faster. It is knowing which problems are worth solving, how to architect reliable systems, and how to build software people trust. AI can generate code, but it cannot replace the judgement you get from shipping payment systems where failure means a merchant cannot get paid or a family cannot access their money.

That judgement is one of Nigeria's greatest untapped assets. It is thriving quietly in engineering teams in Yaba, inside companies like Andela, among founders building software businesses, and across thousands of Nigerian developers who are the most sought-after freelancers globally. They have the skills. What they lack is the ecosystem that lets them own products instead of just contributing to someone else's.

How can Nigeria build an AI ecosystem owned by Africans?

This is why the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy and NITDA's risk-based framework for high-risk AI systems are solid steps. Responsible regulation is essential, especially when AI touches finance, healthcare, and public administration. But regulation alone will not birth the next generation of Nigerian AI giants.

If I were advising policymakers, I would tell them this. Pair every announcement about GPUs and data centres with an equal commitment to applied engineering capability. We do not just need introductory AI literacy, where Nigeria already excels. We need advanced training in machine learning engineering, model deployment, data engineering, AI security, MLOps, and product development for African markets.

More importantly, the government must create pathways for Nigerian AI startups to build and scale. Expand research partnerships between universities and industry. Support indigenous AI companies through procurement. Provide access to venture capital. Create environments where local founders own the intellectual property instead of just supplying technical labour to foreign interests.

Nigeria does not lack talent. Our engineers build systems used globally. They mentor global teams and architect enterprise platforms. What we have yet to build is the bridge between technical excellence and ownership. A bridge that lets Nigerian engineers create globally competitive AI companies instead of powering foreign interests.

I often think about the contrast between the Financial Inclusion System we built years ago and the AI infrastructure rising across Lagos. The earlier project succeeded because it was designed around a Nigerian problem by engineers who understood Nigeria. The new AI infrastructure will only fulfil its promise if the software running inside those data centres is built with the same philosophy. By people who understand local realities first and global opportunities second.

The cranes over Lekki are an important beginning. But a data centre is just an empty room filled with expensive computers until someone decides what to build with them. The true measure of Nigeria's AI ambition will never be the number of GPUs we install. It will be the number of Nigerian companies, products, and breakthroughs those GPUs make possible.

What is the difference between data sovereignty and innovation sovereignty?

Data sovereignty means keeping sensitive data and AI workloads within a country's borders. Innovation sovereignty means having the local talent, companies, and intellectual property to create original AI products, rather than just hosting infrastructure for foreign multinationals.

Why is advanced AI training important for Nigeria?

Advanced AI training in areas like machine learning engineering, MLOps, and AI security moves developers beyond basic AI literacy. It equips them to build, deploy, and own complex AI systems tailored to African markets instead of just supplying coding labour to foreign platforms.