MTN and Airtel invest $400 million on cloud services priced in Naira to attract startup businesses
Nigeria's tech industry is witnessing a significant shift, with major players investing heavily in cloud and AI infrastructure to support the country's growing digital economy.
According to Mordor Intelligence, Nigeria's cloud computing market is expected to reach $1.03 billion in 2025 and $3.28 billion by 2030. Statista also predicts that the public cloud segment in Nigeria will generate $1.63 billion in 2025.
MTN and Airtel are at the forefront of this transformation. MTN announced in June 2024 that it will build a Tier-4 data center to enhance its infrastructure and support growing demand. The hyperscale data center, when completed in 2026, will be Nigeria's first and will be engineered for massive workloads like generative AI. MTN aims to undercut global rates by 15-20% by pricing in naira and hosting workloads locally to cut latency and strengthen data sovereignty. Their goal is to become the go-to providers for startups in a market dominated by AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.
MTN's cloud facility is intended to provide space and services for companies to digitalize their operations. Abia State is already on MTN's cloud platform. Meanwhile, MTN has invested $120 million in its cloud service and plans to invest another $135 million.
Airtel is also investing $400 million to expand its services to offer cloud and AI services. Airtel's hyperscale data center has already received its first GPUs for AI model training, as the company bets that it will deliver the modern infrastructure needed for AI research and use.
The draft National AI Strategy emphasizes the need for affordable, localized compute infrastructure. Amazon CTO Werner Vogels visited Lagos in April 2025, pledging support for the Nigerian market. Google has also provided over $5 million in equity-free funding and cloud credits to startups since 2018.
However, the devaluation of the naira since 2023 has made dollar expenses for startups more expensive, potentially hindering their ability to invest in cloud and AI services. The country's AI infrastructure index stands at just 42.67, indicating a need for improvement to fully leverage the potential of AI to add $15 billion to Nigeria's GDP by 2030.
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) introduced a Cloud Computing Policy in 2019 to encourage local providers. Shifting to a new cloud platform will be a learning curve for startups, but Sotunde-Adesina believes adoption will depend on performance.
As Nigeria navigates this digital transition, it becomes increasingly clear that the country is poised to become a significant player in the global tech landscape.
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