Nigeria Expands Local Cloud Infrastructure to Cut Costs

Nigeria is seeking to enhance its local cloud infrastructure to lower digital service costs, limit capital outflows, and generate employment as part of its strategy to strengthen the digital economy. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), under Director-General Kashifu Inuwa, is collaborating with local data center operators and global cloud providers through a new National Sovereign Cloud initiative.

Currently, over 85% of Nigeria's workloads are on public cloud platforms, primarily hosted abroad. The initiative aims to encourage global cloud providers to invest in local infrastructure rather than serving Nigerian customers remotely.

Inuwa stated that the goal is to localize services without excluding international companies. A memorandum of understanding between NITDA and Galaxy Backbone is in progress to make cloud services more affordable for startups, allowing payments in naira.

The initiative follows Nigeria's 2019 Cloud First policy, which shifted workloads to cloud computing but revealed weaknesses in local infrastructure development.