From Business Day

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy by GDP, is in the midst of an unprecedented data centre construction boom, even as terrestrial connections and last-mile broadband connectivity continue to lag, industry insiders say.

With all three submarine cable landing stations in close proximity to Lagos, urban areas in the commercial nerve centre have been the first to benefit from faster internet connections, according to them.

The same cannot be said about rural areas without requisite broadband infrastructure. The race to rapidly expand the nation’s Information Technology (IT) infrastructure to power the fast-growing dot com and online banking enterprises, industry insiders say, is providing fresh business opportunities for foreign equipment vendors, as well as local technology firms, and could soon see Africa’s most populous country emerge with one of the most advanced computing infrastructures in the world.

“Abundance of data, its rapid growth rate at unexpected speeds, global digitization, hence higher dependence on data availability, security, integrity and lack of qualified facilities to host them, are driving data centre projects in Nigeria”, says Mehdi Paryavi, president, TechXact Group Corporation, USA in an interview.

According to him, this trend is also taking place in advanced economies where banks, oil and gas, and other multi-national firms that require high-speed, secure digital storage facilities, are moving away from running their own in-house computer centres, towards outsourcing this business to commercial operators.

“The central bank is seeking an effective data storage centre, and banks generally will be one of the main drivers for data centres, not just for banks but for stockbrokers, insurance firms”, said Rex Mafiana, chief executive officer (CEO) at FPG Technologies & Solutions Limited.

Read more at Business Day