NITDA To Drive National Digital Growth Through Innovation

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has expressed its commitment to fostering an innovative ecosystem that balances regulation with industry growth by investing in cloud infrastructure, data classification, and AI applications to solidify its position as a leading African digital hub.

The NITDA director general, Kashifu Inuwa stated this while speaking as a panelist at the Africa Hyperscalers Digital Infrastructure Outlook 2025 where he gave deep insights on the Agency’s planned strategies in leveraging innovative solutions and regulations in actualizing the Presidential 8-point agenda which cuts across all sector of the economy.

Spokesperson of NITDA Hadiza Umar, in a statement issued on Sunday, said the African Hyperscalers Digital Infrastructure Outlook 2025 gathered industry experts from the tech ecosystem to examine and explore Africa’s role in the expanding global AI-driven infrastructure boom.

Speaking on the Agency’s regulatory framework which ensures adaptability in an ever-evolving technological landscape, Inuwa highlighted the NITDa’s two-pronged approach, which are rule-based regulation and non-rule-based regulation.

According to him, rule-based regulation involves strict guidelines for industry compliance while non-rule-based regulation allows for industry- led innovation with established benchmarks.

“Before we regulate anything, we need to be aware of the landscape, we need to be intelligent, we need to have data and make sense out of that data, we need to be dynamic because technology is fast-changing and we need to develop that agility within the regulatory framework,” he noted.

The DG also noted that one of the Agency’s key initiatives is the Cloud First Policy which was introduced in 2019 to discourage excessive reliance on physical data centres. He stated that the policy encourages government Agencies and private businesses to leverage cloud computing, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and other digital solutions.

He also mentioned that while the strategy initially granted waivers for businesses to use public cloud infrastructure, NITDA has since pushed for local data centres to scale up their capabilities.

Speaking on the agency’s achievements, Inuwa said that a major milestone in NITDA’s journey was its successful engagement with global hyperscaler providers and with Google Cloud pledging to collaborate with local data centres to drive cloud adoption and establish a hyperscaler data centre in Nigeria.

“The Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, met our president, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Paris and the president shared his transformative ambition for Nigeria. The president said that he believes technology can help him to achieve all the 8-point agenda from economic diversification, national security, food security, and infrastructures which include digital infrastructures with a focus on education and healthcare because technology can enable all of them,” he said.

He added that to further drive cloud adoption and investment, NITDA is finalising a framework that will mandate the classification of data, ensuring that certain categories of data remain within Nigeria. According to him, this move is expected to attract more cloud service providers and strengthen the country’s digital sovereignty.

While emphasising that Africa’s focus should be on AI applications rather than building Large Language Models (LLMs), Inuwa disclosed that NITDA is also prioritising the application of AI to enhance governance, regulation, and service delivery.

Inuwa asserted that the agency has identified three areas in which AI can revolutionise governance and business operations by automating processes, enhancing regulatory efficiency and developing knowledge management systems.

“The real power of AI is in application, not in building large language models (LLMs). We should focus on deploying AI to sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and financial services, where it can make an immediate impact,” Inuwa averred.

In her earlier opening remark, Dr Nadu Denloye, co-founder of Telnet Nigeria Limited said that Africa is on the cusp of a remarkable digital transformation, driven by advancements in connectivity, cloud adoption, data centres, artificial intelligence, and a growing digital-native population.

Describing the programme as a platform for solutions, she expressed confidence that the programme would craft solutions that will provide crucial insights and actionable strategies to drive Africa’s digital growth, “Africa’s digital revolution is unfolding at an unprecedented pace.

By leveraging our collective expertise and fostering collaboration among key stakeholders, we can overcome obstacles and unlock the immense opportunities that lie ahead,” she stated.

Other panelists present at the event were the CEO Open Access Data Centres and the chairman of the Africa Data Centres Association Dr. Ayaotunde Coker, chief executive officer, Kasi Cloud, Johnson AgboGbua, Data Centres Global Sector lead, International Finance Corporation, Obinna Isiadinso, chief operating officer, IHS, Kazeem Oladepo, and the commercial director, Bayobab, Abibat Kazeem.