Chief Government Officer of Digital Realty Nigeria, Engr. Ike Nnamani, have mentioned that information centres within the nation are nonetheless years away from with the ability to assist core Synthetic Intelligence (AI) workloads.
Talking on the CEO Breakfast Roundtable organised by the Nigeria Info Know-how Reporters’ Affiliation (NITRA), Nnamani mentioned that whereas native information centres presently assist cloud providers, none is provided for full-scale AI infrastructure.
“The closest now we have at present when it comes to information centre infrastructure are amenities that may run cloud providers. However in relation to core AI, not one of the information centres in Nigeria was designed for that,” he mentioned.
AI adoption rising, however infrastructure is lagging
Nnamani famous that regardless of the infrastructure hole, Nigeria’s AI ecosystem is increasing quickly.
He disclosed that over 300 members of an area AI affiliation are actively growing or promoting AI options and leveraging world AI platforms for his or her operations.
Nonetheless, deploying compute-heavy AI techniques corresponding to massive language fashions, deep studying clusters, or superior inference engines requires purpose-built amenities that may deal with high-density workloads, superior cooling techniques, and important energy availability.
“The query we should ask is: what’s the plan to construct AI-enabled information centres, and who has the expertise and monetary capability to make it occur?” he mentioned.
Nnamani emphasised that constructing AI-ready information centres will rely closely on world operators with expertise deploying high-performance computing environments.
“That’s the place world gamers like Digital Realty are available in. These corporations have already carried out AI infrastructure of their amenities all over the world, and importantly, they’ve the monetary muscle to do it,” he mentioned.
- He burdened the necessity for Nigeria to start localising AI processing simply because it has pushed for native information internet hosting, however warned that reaching it will require constructing new amenities “designed from day one to assist AI infrastructure and providers.”
- In line with him, Nigeria continues to be two to 3 years away from having such capabilities. Till then, main AI functions will proceed to depend on infrastructure hosted overseas.
South Africa main with AI-ready information centres
Nnamani referenced Digital Realty’s South African subsidiary, Teraco, which lately constructed an AI-ready information centre geared up with liquid cooling techniques and high-density racks.
“One in all their information centres is greater than all the information centres in Nigeria mixed when it comes to IT load,” he mentioned, highlighting the size distinction between each markets.
Trying forward, Nnamani mentioned Digital Realty is getting ready to construct further amenities in Nigeria, together with a lot bigger hyperscale information centres.
What it’s best to know
Regardless of the shortage of supporting infrastructure, the Nigerian authorities, by means of the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economic system, Dr. Bosun Tijani, have been aggressively pushing AI agenda within the nation.
In line with a latest report, ‘State of AI Coverage in Africa 2025’, whereas Nigeria leads West Africa in AI adoption, its ambitions are in danger as a consequence of a significant funding shortfall.
The report warns that regardless of main AI coverage improvement in West Africa, Nigeria’s progress may stall with out stronger home funding.
