MTN Nigeria completes initial stage of $235 million data center project, marking its entry into cloud computing market competition.
MTN Nigeria, a leading telecommunications company, has marked its entry into the commercial data hosting sector with the completion of the first phase of a $235 million data center in Lagos. This development positions the company at the forefront of Nigeria's fast-growing data center market.
The newly completed Phase 1 of the data center, named the Dabengwa Sifiso Data Centre, features a 4.5MW IT load, spans three floors, houses 780 racks, and cost $100 million to build. The data center is designed to Tier III standards and boasts AI-ready workloads, 3D environmental monitoring, and advanced containment units.
When fully developed, the data center will reach a 9MW capacity. Phase 2, estimated at $135 million, aims for Tier IV certification, the highest global benchmark for uptime and redundancy. The modular design, featuring 96 prefabricated containers, can scale beyond 14MW.
MTN believes it has what it takes to capture meaningful market share in Nigeria's rapidly expanding cloud market. The company's data center strategy aims to democratize cloud access for startups and local developers.
Linda Saint-Okafor, chief Enterprise Business Officer at MTN Nigeria, stated that MTN is the first, or among the first, to offer a self-orchestration data platform in Nigeria. Self-orchestration allows users to autonomously provision and manage resources, accelerating product development and reducing time-to-market.
The MTN Cloud platform, hosted within the data center, offers self-orchestration, similar to AWS or Google Cloud. The platform is designed to cater especially to startups and SMEs, lowering total cost of ownership and barriers to cloud adoption.
Moreover, MTN prices its cloud services in Nigerian Naira rather than US Dollars, insulating local businesses from exchange rate volatility and the challenges of accessing foreign currency. This approach not only reduces the cost of doing business but also makes cloud services more accessible to a wider range of customers, supporting the digital economy’s growth and fostering ecosystem development around local infrastructure.
The data center is carrier-agnostic, allowing clients to connect through any fibre provider, not just MTN's network. It includes 24/7 intelligent monitoring, PCI DSS readiness, and role-based access control, targeting high-compliance industries like finance, health, and national security.
MTN operates over 50 data centers across Africa and the Middle East. The company's data center project in Lagos is part of its broader push to strengthen cloud infrastructure.
In a related development, MTN will host a Moonshot event in Lagos on October 15-16, featuring Africa's top founders, creatives, and tech leaders. Early bird tickets for the event are 20% off.
The Nigerian data center market is rapidly growing, expected to reach nearly 280 MW by 2030, with over $630 million being invested by various operators. The market is intensely competitive, with global and local providers like Equinix, Digital Realty, Nxtra, OADC, ADC, Rack Centre, Amazon AWS, and Huawei vying for a share. However, MTN's unique strategies, such as self-orchestration, localized pricing, and modular design, make it a formidable competitor in this growing market.
The Dabengwa Sifiso Data Centre, MTN's newly completed phase of a data center in Lagos, will cater especially to startups and SMEs through its cloud services, offering self-orchestration like AWS or Google Cloud, priced in Nigerian Naira to insulate local businesses from exchange rate volatility.
As part of its broader push to strengthen cloud infrastructure, MTN believes it has what it takes to capture meaningful market share in Nigeria's rapidly growing cloud market and aims to democratize cloud access for startups and local developers through its data center strategies.
