How AI, Data Centres, Broadband Shaped ICT Sector in 2025

The rapid evolution of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, broadband and the influx of data centres, among others, set the flow of direction in the Information and Communications Technology sector in Nigeria in 2025, writes Emma Okonji

Although the year 2025 came with its own challenges that squeezed the Nigerian economy, leading to loss of jobs and increase in the rate of unemployment, but such challenges were seen as opportunities for tech savvy Nigerians that decided to leverage on the opportunities of emerging technologies to develop solutions that addressed some of Nigeria’s specific challenges around financial payments and connectivity. Emerging technologies like AI, Internet of Things (IoTs), Broadband Connectivity and the influx of Tier 111 Cloud Data Centres, helped in shaping the narratives in the Nigerian ICT sector in 2025.

Agentic AI

Aside using AI to develop addressable solutions in 2025, the emergence of Agentic AI also helped tech startup companies to improve on their existing solutions across financial payments and connectivity. Agentic AI is a new paradigm in artificial intelligence that emphasises autonomy, goal-driven behavior, and orchestration across multiple specialised agents. Unlike traditional AI, it doesn’t just respond to commands—it actively plans, decides, and executes tasks with minimal human oversight. Agentic AI refers to AI systems that act with agency—the capacity to operate independently and purposefully toward goals. Instead of a single model doing everything, Agentic AI uses multi-agent systems where each agent handles a subtask, coordinated by an orchestration engine.

Recently, Microsoft, in collaboration with the Federal Government of Nigeria, Data Science Nigeria, and Lagos Business School, announced a major milestone in its Artificial Intelligence (AI) National Skills Initiative (AINSI).

Microsoft said it has trained more than 350,000 Nigerians with AI skills through the AINSI programme, an achievement that builds on Microsoft’s longstanding partnership with the government, which has delivered digital training to over four million people since 2021.

The milestone, according to Microsoft, underscores Nigeria’s commitment to inclusive, technology-driven growth and reflects strong progress in preparing individuals and organisations to thrive in the digital economy.

General Manager, Microsoft Nigeria and Ghana, Abideen Yusuf, said: “Nigeria cannot afford to wait. AI is reshaping every sector, and the countries that move fastest on skills will lead. We must equip people now, at scale and with intent, so the immense opportunity presented by AI doesn’t pass us by.”

Data Centres

In 2025, Nigeria experienced an influx of Tier 111 data centres that were largely concentrated in Lagos and other cities of Nigeria. They include Rack Centre, Open Access Data Centres (OADC), Digital Reality Nigeria and the latest and biggest Cloud Data Centres known as Kasi Cloud, among others, located in Lekki, Lagos that will be launched before the first half of 2026.

Nigeria has about 16 data centres, of which 10 are located in Lagos State, and mainly concentrated in Leki corridors, Victorian Island and Eco Atlantic City. But Rack Centre data facility is the only hyper-scale date centre located on Lagos mainland. With its proximity to critical government apparatus, the facility provides the connectivity that allows the day-to-day communication with our cloud services.

Rack Centre, a carrier neutral data centre operator, hosting several international, regional and local clients, in September 2025, launched its new Tier III Data Centre in Nigeria with IT power capacity of 12 megawatt, covering a white space of 3240sqm.

The facility has IT rooms of six data halls each of 2mw IT load and 24 kw rack density, alongside four Meet-Me-Rooms.

CEO of Rack Centre, Lars Johannisson, said the facility would offer100 per cent uptime that is unprecedented and un-comparable. According to him, the data centre facility is the largest in West Africa, built as a meeting point for business owners and entrepreneurs. “The facility has efficient cooling system with improved energy efficiency and protected by 10 layers of security checks. It is a hyper-scale data centre with Artificial Intelligence (AI) ready features,” Johannisson further said.

Speaking during the launch of the data centre in Lagos, Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the new Rack Centre LGS2 data centre facility, located in Ikeja, Lagos, would attract local and international technology companies operating in Nigeria, to host their data in the facility, thereby creating jobs and boosting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for Nigeria.

The governor, who was represented by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Lagos State, Mr. Sam Egube, said the state-of-the-art data centre facility would also boost economic activities in the state.

Digital Reality Nigeria, a leading global provider of carrier-neutral data centre, collocation and interconnection solutions, in August 2025, launched its third data centtre (LKK2) in Lagos, designed to accelerate digital transformation across the African region, and expand access to its global data centre platforms.

Speaking during the launch, its Managing Director, Mr. Ikechukwu Nnamani said: “LKK2 is a significant milestone in our journey to support digital transformation in Africa. Our continued investment in Nigeria and the broader African region reinforces our commitment to enabling seamless global interconnectivity and providing a future-ready infrastructure platform for local and global enterprises.”

Having exhausted its existing 1.5mw data centre capacity, OADC, in 2025, commenced the construction of another data centre facility in Lekki, Lagos, which will have 24mw capacity when completed in 2026.

The additional data centre facility, which is AI-powered, is part of OADC’s expansion plan in a bid to accommodate more customers, whose demands for data centre space are on the increase.

The total cost of establishing 1mw Tier III Data Centre is put at $10 million and OADC is constructing a twin Tier III Data Centre with 12mw capacity each, totaling 24mw data centre capacity at the cost of $240 million, which is expected to be completed in 2026.

Speaking about the value of the on-going 24mw Tier III Data Centre facility at a press conference in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer at OADC, Dr. Ayotunde Coker, said the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC), which is the parent company of OADC, is an open access wholesale hyperscale connectivity company, and a consortium partner with Google on the Google Equiano Cable, as well as a consortium partner of 2Africa Cable and Meta Cable.

According to him, the Equiano Cable, which is now live across the west coast of Africa, lands into the OADC facility in Lagos, while the 2Africa Cable lands into the OADC facility in Durban, South Africa, thus bringing resilient data centre infrastructure to Nigeria and the rest of Africa, adding that such industry collaboration will boost global connectivity in order to maintain locally based hyperscale cloud capacity that will help to localise internet access in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

“So we have open access data centers, and we have the open access metro service that is building fiber across Lagos, and my role is to run the data centre business across Africa,” Coker said.

Kasi Cloud Data Centres is at the verge of completing its Tier III data centres located in Lekki, Lagos, which promises to be the biggerst data centres ever in Nigeria and West Africa.

The data centre is seated on 4.2 hectares of land, with minimum 32 megawatts critical IT load of power that goes to computers, routers, storage systems, which means we are bringing more power than that.

The building is designed to have two redundant fiberisers, and our fibers have to be buried at 1.8 meters below ground level.The data centres have commercial area, security area, operations area, reception area, including conference rooms and meeting rooms, among others.The building has four floors that will house four independent data centres. The cooling system is powerful. It absorbs heat and the heat rises through huge pipes, all the way to the chiller. So, the chiller will send chilled water, and these will return warm water, which the chiller will treat. So, at every point in time, the data centre will remain cool.

The data centre is designed to have four electrical lines and everything is radially configured.

Founder and CEO of Kasi Cloud, Mr. Johnson Agogbua, said: “What we’ve built is a share-nothing architecture facility where each data centre does not share anything with the other data centre other than the common building itself. So you can be rest assured that if you deploy across the floors, you will have different availability zones even within our campus. Again, it is a prerequisite scale to be able to deploy cloud. So each of the data centre floors has two massive data halls, and when users deploy across them, they should be able to do anywhere from 1,100 racks to 1,400 racks per data centre.”

Broadband

Although broadband connectivity played a vital role in driving digital transformation in Nigeria in 2025, the country was unable to meet its 70 per cent broadband target as enshrined in the National Broadband Plan (NBP 2020-2025).

The recent statistics on broadband penetration and subscriptions, released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms industry regulator, exposed the inability of Nigeria to attain the 70 per cent broadband penetration target by the end of December 2025.

Nigeria had an ambitious plan, to attain broadband penetration level of 70 per cent by the end of December 2025, but such hope was dashed, based on the recent statistics about Nigeria’s broadband penetration level, which stood at 49.89 per cent as at October 2025, as released recently by the NCC.

NCC had in 2023, re-assured Nigerians that the country would attain 50 per cent broadband penetration threshold by the end of 2023, and possibly surpass the 70 per cent target before the end of 2025.

NCC’s assurance was based on the contributions of telecommunication’s sector to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), which increased significantly to 16 per cent in Q2 2023, coupled with the various regulatory interventions of the NCC. Telecoms’ contributions however dropped to 9.2 per cent in Q2, 2025, and the ambitious target of attaining 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025, may have been dashed, given the latest statistics on Nigeria’s broadband penetration level, which NCC puts at 49.89 per cent.

3MTT Initiative

The federal government, in 2025, intensified its 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) initiative, designed to train three million Nigerians in technical skills talent, by collaborating with partners that supported the initiative.

The initiative aimed to train three million Nigerians in high-demand technical skills that will help build a robust digital economy, create two million digital jobs by 2025 and position Nigeria as a net exporter of technical talents.

One of its partners, IHS Nigeria, has trained several Nigerians in digital skills.

Auwal Emes, who leads community operations of the 3MTT programme sponsored by IHS Nigeria , said, among the 1.8 million people that registered, over 240, 000 people have been trained in different cohorts. According to him, over 30 thousand job opportunities have been created for those that passed through the training programne.

“The job opportunities cut across people getting internship opportunities in companies, in partner companies, to people getting jobs both within and outside the country,” he said.

One of the beneficiaries of the IHS sponsored 3MTT programme, Damilola Makinde, spoke about her experience and knowledge gained.

Damilola Makinde who was trained on Product Management, said before the training, she had no knowledge of the computer, but that after the training, she became digitally skilled and currently working remotely from Nigeria, for a Dubai Company.

“I didn’t know anything about the course until I started. And throughout the 12 weeks of learning, we learnt both theory and practical. We had the opportunity to visit the classroom once a week. There are designated learning centers, where we met with critical instructors apart from learning online. So the training helped in boosting my confidence. It sharpened my skills and also boosted my confidence in practicing the course. At the end of the training, I got my certificate. And in the process of talking to people, and sharing my social network, I got connected to a Dubai Company, where I currently work remotely from Nigeria.

I requested to have an internship with them and after working with them for like three months, I got fully employed by the company. I’m still with the company and I’ve been able to work on so many products, and I thank IHS for the training opportunity,” she said.

Microsoft, which another partner of the federal government on 3MTT initiative, has backed impactful programs that reach learners where it matters most, with access to training opportunities and clear path to employment.

Online Protection

Despite the opportunities in advancing digital transformation through internet connectivity, Nigerians are still skeptical about the disadvantage of online learning, as it relates to abuse of technology facilitated gender abuse.

Based on the perceived fears emanating from technology facilitated gender abuse, most None Governmental Organisations (NGO), in 2025, raised serious campaign against online gender abuse, through several conferences and seminars, designed to protect females from online abuse.

In November this year, Ndukwe Kalu Foundation held the Child Online Safety Protection Reporting of Abuse (COSPRA), where it raised awareness on the dangers of online browsing and connectivity.

Lagos State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Jamiu Tolani Alli-Balogun, said as technology continued to evolve, students should ignore the negative vices of the evolving technology and embrace the positive aspect of the internet, while surfing the internet for academic research.

Also this December, Technology-facilitated Gender Based Violence (TfGBV) Policy Roundtable was organised in Lagos by Leading Ladies Africa and TechHerNG as part of strategic advocacy efforts for the 16 Days of Activism global campaign.

Founder of TechHerNG, Chioma Agwuegbo, opened the conversation by highlighting the critical intersection of power, profit, and women’s digital participation.

Agwuegbo, who addressed what she called the “darker side” of the digital economy, said: “We acknowledge the harm and the darker side of the digital economy, which is the fact that a lot of women are not allowed to play, because things like tech-facilitated gender-based violence stops them.”

Regional Portfolio Director, Africa at Luminate, Toyin Akinniyi, underscored the double-edged nature of technology, celebrating its unprecedented possibilities while confronting its vulnerabilities.

“Technology has given us unimaginable power but it has also given us a new terrain of vulnerability,” she said.

Founder and Executive Director, Leading Ladies Africa, Francesca Uriri, said: “The intersection of women’s leadership and AI in Africa isn’t just about representation, it’s about innovation, equity, and solving real problems.”

ChallengesDespite the gains of technology in driving digital transformation in 2025, it also came with its challenges, as highlighted by the Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON). According to Adebayo, the telecoms sector faced several challenges in 2025, that slowed down development in the sector. He said vandalisation of telecoms infrastructure led to significant revenue losses by operators, both in terms of connectivity and in terms of high cost of operations. “There were severe damages on telecoms’ infrastructure, caused by road contractors, which affected connectivity and quality of service in 2025, coupled with theft of diesel and power stations on sites. But I am glad about the passage of the Critical National Information and Infrastructure (CNII) Bill  that seeks to protect telecoms infrastructure going forward,” Adebayo said.