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By Chinenye Anuforo
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The Chief Executive Officer of Geniserve, an ICT infrastructure firm, Gbenga Adegbiji, has told Nigeria’s economic managers one scalding reality-that Nigeria risks forfeiting its chance to lead Africa’s artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure boom unless it urgently fixes its electricity crisis.
Speaking at a media workshop on digital infrastructure held in Lagos in partnership with The Media Training Room (TMTR), Open Access Data Centres and Rack Centre, Adegbiji said the future of Nigeria’s digital economy hinges not on urban location or connectivity alone, but increasingly on the availability of stable, large-scale power.
He cautioned that countries and regions that can guarantee reliable electricity will attract the next wave of hyperscale data centres and AI computing hubs, while places struggling with power instability risk being sidelined in the continent’s expanding digital economy.
Historically, Lagos has attracted the bulk of Nigeria’s data-centre investments because of its fibre connectivity, commercial activity and international links. But Adegbiji said the rapid growth of AI and cloud computing is changing that equation. The energy demands of next-generation computing infrastructure are now so intense that electricity availability not fibre alone is becoming the primary determinant of where facilities are located.
According to Adegbiji, future data-centre ownership and investments may increasingly flow toward regions that can guarantee dependable power supplies, such as gas-rich areas of southern Nigeria or neighbouring countries with robust energy infrastructure. Failure to improve power reliability, he warned, could push capital, innovation and high-value technology jobs away from Nigeria.
Tracing Nigeria’s digital transformation over the past three decades, Adegbiji recalled the early 1990s when banking services were largely manual, cash withdrawals were limited to a single branch, and international transfers took significant time. Today’s real-time payments, global connectivity and always-on digital services have been made possible by the expansion of digital infrastructure particularly data centres and broadband networks.
He described data centres as the unseen backbone of the modern economy. These industrial facilities house the servers, storage, and networking systems that power financial services, cloud platforms, streaming applications and enterprise operations. Their effectiveness, he said, depends on five core elements: resilience, redundancy, scalability, efficiency and robust security.
However, the explosion in demand for AI computing is dramatically increasing the power and cooling requirements of data centres. Where rack servers once required modest energy levels, modern AI nodes demand extremely high densities of power, placing new pressures on infrastructure and challenging existing power solutions.
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To illustrate this shift, Adegbiji discussed his involvement in a large-scale AI project in East Africa that requires more than 100 megawatts of electricity to support advanced computing workloads highlighting the scale of energy now needed to compete in the AI era.
Connectivity remains essential, he said, noting that submarine cables and fibre networks link global digital systems. But he emphasised that connectivity alone cannot sustain meaningful digital operations if power is unreliable. “A data centre without electricity cannot function, no matter how strong the network links are,” he stated.
Experts at the workshop agreed that understanding the technical foundations of digital infrastructure is crucial for accurate reporting, warning that superficial coverage can misinform both the public and policymakers.
The CEO Geniserve urged journalists to deepen their technical literacy to better hold industry leaders and government entities accountable, ensuring that national conversations around digital transformation address foundational challenges, not just services and applications.
Nigeria’s data-centre industry has been growing rapidly, with overall capacity expected to expand significantly over the next several years as local and global operators scale their facilities. But Adegbiji said that without a parallel focus on robust power solutions including renewable energy integration, grid reform and long-term infrastructure planning the country’s potential will remain constrained.
Globally, data centres are central to the AI revolution, with electricity consumption projected to rise sharply as advanced computing workloads proliferate. This trend puts pressure on all countries aiming to build competitive digital economies, but for Nigeria, where energy challenges have long hindered industrial growth, the stakes are particularly high.
Adegbiji urged policymakers, investors and industry stakeholders to prioritise reliable energy infrastructure if Nigeria hopes to lead Africa’s digital economy and compete in the emerging AI era, warning that failure to act could push future investments, jobs and technological capacity to other countries on the continent.
He concluded that the defining contest for Nigeria’s digital future will not be fought in software innovation alone, but in the nation’s ability to deliver stable, affordable and scalable power for the infrastructure that underpins the modern economy.
