Center Market Eyes $1.09bn By 2031

The Nigeria Data Center Market has predicted to reach $1.09 billion by 2031, rising at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.99 per cent.
The market was valued at $288 million in 2025, according to data the “Nigerian Data Center Market- Investment Analysis & Growth Opportunities 2026-2031.
The number of third-party data center facilities in Nigeria is steadily growing and an established market within West Africa, Nigeria currently hosts around 20 colocation data centers, with the majority concentrated in Lagos, the country’s primary digital hub.

Major colocation operators active in the Nigerian market include Africa Data Centres, Open Access Data Centres, 21st Century Technologies, Equinix, Digital Realty, and Rack Centre. In addition, new players such as Airtel Africa, Kasi Cloud, UniCloud Africa, and BDIC have recently entered the market, and their growing presence is expected to intensify competition over the next few years.

Currently, retail colocation dominates the market, holding a larger share and greater installed capacity than wholesale offerings. Industries such as media & entertainment, tourism, education, healthcare, oil & gas, and retail are significant contributors to the rising demand for retail colocation services. Nonetheless, the wholesale colocation demand is expected to accelerate, driven by increasing adoption of cloud services, with cloud providers anticipated to host part of their workloads through wholesale colocation facilities.
Nigeria currently hosts eight operational submarine cables, which collectively enable high-speed connectivity, reduce latency, and meet the rising demand for broadband and cloud services as critical components of Nigeria’s fast-growing digital economy.

In March 2025, Globacom, in partnership with the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, hosted the International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit in Abuja. This event highlighted the need for enhanced resilience following the March-April 2024 West Africa submarine cable disruptions, when multiple systems, including WACS, ACE, SAT-3, and MainOne, were damaged. During these outages, the Glo-1 cable, operational since 2010, demonstrated remarkable reliability.

According to the report, Nigeria is accelerating its shift toward AI and digitisation, supported by advances in cloud computing, data centers, and supercomputing capabilities for climate research. The country is leveraging AI to enhance productivity across sectors, while prioritizing renewable energy and sustainable digital solutions. For instance, in February 2025, Microsoft announced an initiative to train one million Nigerians in AI skills, aligning with forecasts that AI could add $15 billion to Nigeria’s GDP by 2030