Airtel Business under its Nxtra arm recently conducted the groundbreaking for their new data centre facility in Lagos, Nigeria. This follows the announcement in 2023 of their intent to establish 5 new data centres within Africa. The new facility, located in Eko Atlantic, Lagos, is expected to be the largest data centre in Nigeria upon completion with a capacity of 35 megawatts. It will be designed to host high-density racks operating with a PUE of 1.3.

Prior to the groundbreaking ceremony, the company launched NXtra, their data centre arm which is a joint venture between Airtel Business and Carlyle Group. The brand was solely present in India with a portfolio comprising 12 data centres and 120 Edge facilities. In addition, the company appointed the former head of global data centre portfolio management of Amazon Web Services, Yashnath Issur as CEO of NXtra Africa.

Consequently, the completion of this facility will increase Nigeria’s total data centre capacity from 140MW to 175MW. However, this figure will still leave Nigeria with the second-largest data centre capacity, behind South Africa’s 408MW according to DC Byte with more investments expected in this sector to further the adoption of digital solutions across the continent.

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