The development makes Johannesburg the first ExpressRoute Metro location on the continent and gives businesses access to more resilient and secure cloud connectivity.

The designation means organisations can connect privately to Microsoft Azure through two peering locations within the Johannesburg metropolitan area. That built-in redundancy helps reduce the risk of service disruption for critical applications and workloads.

Africa Data Centres’ JHB1 facility now serves as the second peering location in Johannesburg to provide local ExpressRoute Metro capability. With Johannesburg joining a small group of global technology hubs offering the service, businesses operating in South Africa can strengthen business continuity while improving the reliability of their cloud services.

Cassava will deliver the service through its cloud and cybersecurity business, Liquid C2. Using its network presence across both peering locations, Liquid C2 will provide Secure CloudConnect, a managed service that combines private cloud connectivity with integrated cybersecurity for organisations using Microsoft Azure.

Ziaad Suleman, senior vice president of Cassava Technologies South Africa and Botswana, said the designation of Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro is an important step for both the company and Africa’s digital infrastructure.

“Being designated a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro peering location is a defining moment for Africa Data Centres as well as for Africa’s digital infrastructure. It reflects growing confidence in the continent’s ability to support the next generation of cloud and AI-driven services while demonstrating the strength of our One Cassava model. 

“By combining the infrastructure capabilities of Africa Data Centres with the cloud and cyber security expertise of Liquid C2, we are providing organisations with the resilient, secure, and trusted digital foundation they need to accelerate innovation and growth.”

The launch also comes as regulators place greater focus on operational resilience, business continuity, risk management and data protection. Cassava said Secure CloudConnect is designed to help organisations strengthen security, reduce the risk of downtime and simplify the management of increasingly complex cloud environments while supporting compliance requirements.

Customers will also work with a single provider for cloud connectivity and security services while running business-critical operations on infrastructure built for high availability.

Vukani Mngxati, CEO of Microsoft South Africa, said the new capability will support the country’s growing demand for trusted cloud infrastructure.

“South Africa isn’t waiting for the AI era – it’s helping to shape it, and that ambition rests on digital infrastructure the country can trust. With Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro now available in Johannesburg, organisations across South Africa gain a more resilient and secure path to the cloud for their most critical workloads. 

“When businesses can build on trusted, resilient foundations, they can move faster, compete on the global stage, and turn South Africa’s digital ambition into real economic impact. We are proud to work with Cassava Technologies to help make that happen.”

The deployment also strengthens Cassava Technologies’ growth in Africa’s cloud infrastructure market as demand grows for secure, high-performance digital services. 

Combining the data centre of Africa Data Centres with the cloud and cybersecurity services of Liquid C2 will help achieve the company’s plan to enable businesses across the continent build more resilient cloud environments while supporting digital transformation.

The post Cassava Technologies Expands Africa’s Cloud Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro in Johannesburg appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

We seldom think about what makes that speed possible or the network of data centres processing enormous amounts of information every second. 

And with digital services becoming more demanding, relying solely on large, centralised data centres has become limiting. Some applications simply cannot afford the delay that comes with sending data hundreds or even thousands of kilometres before it is processed.

That is where edge data centres come in.

Rather than replacing traditional cloud infrastructure, edge data centres extend it by bringing computing power much closer to where data is created and used. This allows businesses to deliver faster services, reduce network congestion and support applications that depend on real-time responses. 

The fast growth of artificial intelligence (AI), 5G networks, connected devices and digital financial services is strengthening the need for this type of infrastructure around the world, including Nigeria. 

The country’s digital economy has really expanded, and edge infrastructure is becoming more relevant to banks, telecom operators, manufacturers, healthcare providers and government agencies that require fast, reliable and secure digital services.

What is an Edge Data Centre?

An edge data centre is a smaller computing facility located close to the people, devices or businesses using digital services. 

Instead of sending every piece of data to a large cloud facility in another city or country, some of that information is processed locally before only what is necessary is transmitted to a central data centre.

Think of it as the difference between visiting a neighbourhood supermarket and driving across town for every item you need. The closer option saves time and reduces traffic. Edge data centres work in much the same way.

For example, when someone in Lagos completes a mobile banking transaction, every request does not have to travel to a distant cloud region before a response is returned. 

Processing some of that information at an edge facility closer to the user reduces delay and improves the experience.

The same principle applies to smart factories, connected hospitals, traffic management systems and video streaming platforms. The closer computing resources are to users, the faster they can respond. 

Edge data centres are therefore not competitors to hyperscale facilities operated by major cloud providers, instead, they work together. The edge handles workloads that require speed, while larger facilities continue to manage long-term storage, large-scale computing and enterprise applications.

Why Edge Data Centres are Now Important

The amount of data being generated every day keeps growing. Smartphones, surveillance cameras, industrial sensors, payment terminals and connected vehicles all produce information that needs immediate processing.

If every request travelled to a distant cloud before a decision was made, users would experience delays, networks would become congested and cost of operations would surge.

Edge data centres help solve these problems in several ways.

They reduce latency, which is the time it takes for data to travel between a user and the system processing it. They also lower bandwidth consumption because not every piece of information has to cross long-distance networks. This improves efficiency and reduces pressure on internet infrastructure.

Another benefit is resilience. Even if connectivity to a central cloud facility is interrupted, many local services can continue operating because some computing takes place much closer to users. 

These advantages explain why edge infrastructure has become very important for sectors where every second counts.

Eight Features That Define an Edge Data Centre

1. Low-Latency Performance

The biggest advantage of an edge data centre is speed, because every digital request travels through networks before reaching a server. The farther that server is located, the longer the response takes.

When computing resources are placed much closer to users, edge facilities reduce the travel time significantly.

For an online shopper, the difference may seem small. For a financial institution processing thousands of payment requests every second or a manufacturing plant relying on automated equipment, those milliseconds are of great importance.

Low latency also improves cloud gaming, live video streaming, industrial automation, emergency response systems and many AI-powered applications that need immediate responses rather than delayed processing. 

2. Smaller and Modular Design

Unlike massive hyperscale campuses covering several hectares, edge data centres are designed to occupy much smaller spaces.

Some are housed inside purpose-built buildings, while others are deployed in compact modular units that can be installed close to business districts, industrial zones or telecom infrastructure.

This modular approach allows operators to expand capacity gradually instead of constructing very large facilities from the outset.

It also shortens deployment time and lowers initial investment costs, making it easier to meet the demand in different locations.

With digital services spreading beyond major cities, this flexibility has become one of the strongest advantages of edge infrastructure. 

3. Close to Users and Connected Devices

Location is one of the defining characteristics of an edge data centre.

Rather than serving an entire country from one location, operators distribute computing resources across multiple sites closer to businesses and consumers.

This improves application performance because information travels shorter distances.

Telecommunication companies use this approach to support faster mobile services. Manufacturers deploy edge infrastructure near factories to analyse machine data in real time, and hospitals can process medical information faster, while retailers improve inventory management and customer services.

The closer computing moves to the point where data is created, the more responsive digital services become. 

4. High Availability

Fast systems are of little value if they frequently go offline.

For this reason, edge data centres are designed with multiple layers of redundancy to keep services running even when equipment fails.

Most facilities include backup power systems, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), standby generators, redundant network connections and continuous environmental monitoring.

If one component develops a fault, another immediately takes over without interrupting operations.

Nigeria’s newest edge facilities are also adopting multiple power sources to improve reliability, stressing the importance of continuous service for financial institutions, telecom operators and enterprise customers. 

5. Carrier-Neutral Connectivity

One important feature many modern edge data centres offer is carrier neutrality.

This means customers are not restricted to a single internet or telecommunications provider.

Instead, businesses can connect to multiple network operators within the same facility, giving them greater flexibility, improved resilience and competitive pricing.

If one network experiences an outage, traffic can usually be redirected through another provider, reducing service disruption.

Carrier-neutral environments also make it easier for cloud providers, internet exchanges, content delivery networks and enterprises to interconnect efficiently.

For organisations that depend heavily on uninterrupted connectivity, this flexibility is a huge advantage.

6. Edge AI Functionality

Artificial intelligence is changing the way data centres operate, but not every AI task belongs inside a massive cloud facility.

To understand why edge data centres are becoming more important, it helps to distinguish between two stages of AI. The first is training, where large amounts of data are used to teach an AI model. 

This requires enormous computing power and is typically carried out in hyperscale data centres equipped with thousands of high-performance processors.

The second stage is inference and this is when a trained AI model is put to work, whether it is recognising a face at an airport, detecting fraud during a card payment or helping a factory identify faults in machinery. These tasks usually need answers within milliseconds.

Sending every request to a distant cloud allows for delays, but edge data centres solve this by running AI applications much closer to where the data is generated. The result is quicker decisions, reduced network traffic and a smoother user experience.

AI adoption is growing across sectors such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing and telecommunications, and hence, edge infrastructure is expected to become more indispensable in supporting everyday AI services.

7. Strong Security

Data security has become one of the biggest concerns for organisations moving more of their operations online.

Edge data centres are designed with both physical and digital protection in mind. Buildings are usually made with access control systems, surveillance cameras, biometric authentication and around-the-clock monitoring to prevent unauthorised entry.

On the cyber side, operators deploy firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection systems and continuous security monitoring to protect customer workloads.

Processing some information closer to where it is generated can also reduce the amount of sensitive data travelling across public networks. That reduces exposure to some security risks, although organisations must still apply strong cybersecurity practices across their entire infrastructure.

Security is not just about preventing attacks, but equally about ensuring that systems are always available, data remains accurate and business operations continue without interruption.

8. Energy-Efficient Operations

Data centres consume significant amounts of electricity, making energy efficiency an important design priority.

Although edge data centres are smaller than hyperscale facilities, operators are investing more in technologies that reduce power consumption while maintaining reliable performance.

Many facilities use precision cooling systems that direct cold air only where it is needed, rather than cooling an entire room. Environmental sensors continuously monitor temperature and humidity to prevent equipment from overheating.

Power management software also helps operators identify inefficient equipment and optimise energy use.

As it stands, businesses are placing greater emphasis on sustainability, and efficient power use has become both an environmental and financial consideration. Lower energy consumption reduces the cost of operations while supporting sustainability goals.

Edge Data Centres vs Traditional Data Centres

While both types of facilities store and process data, they are designed to solve different problems.

This does not mean one is better than the other. Many organisations use both. An edge facility processes time-sensitive information, while a larger regional or hyperscale data centre manages long-term storage, analytics and backup.

Where Edge Data Centres Are Used

Edge infrastructure has become valuable across industries because many modern applications depend on speed.

• Banks use edge facilities to process payment requests quickly and improve customers’ digital banking experience.
• Telecommunications companies deploy edge infrastructure to support 5G services, reduce network congestion and deliver faster mobile connectivity.
• Hospitals benefit by processing medical imaging and patient monitoring data more quickly, particularly where delays could affect clinical decisions.
• Manufacturers analyse information from production lines in real time, allowing engineers to detect equipment faults before they lead to expensive downtime.
• Retailers use edge computing to improve inventory management, automate checkout systems and personalise customer experiences.
• Video streaming companies place content closer to viewers, reducing buffering and improving playback quality.
• Emerging smart city projects also rely on edge infrastructure to support traffic management, public safety systems and connected public services.

These examples illustrate why edge data centres are becoming the essential layer of digital infrastructure rather than a niche technology.

Challenges Limiting Adoption

The challenges limiting adoption include cost. Building multiple facilities across different locations usually requires higher investment than expanding a single central data centre.

Reliable electricity is another challenge in many markets, as operators must invest heavily in backup power systems to maintain continuous operations.

Fibre connectivity also varies across locations. Areas with limited high-speed network infrastructure may find it difficult to benefit fully from edge deployments.

Cybersecurity is another challenge. Distributing computing across many sites increases the number of locations that must be monitored and protected.

There is also a shortage of skilled professionals with expertise in designing, operating and maintaining modern digital infrastructure.

Overcoming these challenges will require steady investment in power, connectivity, technical skills and supportive public policy.

In Nigeria, Edge Data Centres Have Become More Important

The digital economy in Nigeria is growing by the day, and so is the volume of data generated every day.

Mobile banking transactions are also growing, with businesses migrating more applications to the cloud. Artificial intelligence is now frequently used across financial services, healthcare, education and customer support. At the same time, operators are expanding fibre networks and rolling out 5G services in more locations.

These developments are increasing the demand for infrastructure that can process information quickly and reliably.

Nigeria is also seeing more investment in local data centres, reducing reliance on hosting services located outside the country. 

This supports faster application performance, strengthens data sovereignty and helps organisations comply with data protection requirements. 

Recent investments by operators such as Rack Centre, Open Access Data Centres (OADC), Equinix, Kasi Cloud and emerging edge providers is proof that the country’s digital infrastructure market is expanding.

Edge data centres will not replace these larger facilities, but will extend their reach by bringing computing power closer to businesses and consumers across different parts of the country.

The post Edge Data Centres: What Every Executive Needs to Know Before the Next Infrastructure Investment appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Ajayi takes over at a time when MTN is expanding its investments in cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, automation and digital services as it seeks to expand its reach across Nigeria’s competitive telecoms market.

Describing enterprise architecture, digital transformation and platform scale as key areas that have shaped her 27-year career in technology, Ajayi previously served as General Manager, Architecture and Engineering at MTN Nigeria.

During that period, she led architecture and engineering strategy across MTN’s digital, enterprise and customer-facing platforms, supporting services used by over 90 million subscribers.

Her responsibilities also included driving technology transformation programmes, overseeing platform resilience and security, and leading engineering teams across the business.

Ajayi joined MTN in 2003 as an Applications Support Engineer for billing systems and steadily rose through the ranks.

Over the years, she held several leadership positions across enterprise delivery, product development, customer experience operations and information systems before becoming General Manager, Architecture and Engineering.

In her new role, she will oversee the company’s technology strategy and infrastructure as MTN scales platform modernisation and the expansion of digital services.

Speaking on the appointment, Roger Shutte, general manager, Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering at MTN Nigeria, described her growth as recognition of years of hands-on leadership within the organisation.

“Bukola has been part of the engine room since the beginning. Not watching from a distance. Not arriving at the end. But deeply involved in the architecture, engineering, governance, resilience and execution that have shaped Technology in MTN Nigeria over the years,” he said.

Bukola Ajayi assumes the CIO position at a critical period for MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest mobile network operator which serves more than 90 million subscribers and accounts for a significant share of MTN Group’s revenue.

The company has been investing heavily in digital platforms, cloud technologies, artificial intelligence and financial services as it looks beyond traditional voice and data services.

With digital services now indispensable to its operations, Ajayi will be responsible for overseeing MTN’s technology strategy, platform development and information systems.

Her promotion further strengthens female representation in senior technology leadership roles within Nigeria’s telecommunications industry, where women are underrepresented in executive technical positions.

The post MTN Nigeria Appoints Long-Serving Executive Bukola Ajayi as Chief Information Officer appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

This discussion has gathered pace since the CBN directed banks, fintechs and other financial institutions to store payment data in Nigeria by January 2027.

The policy aims to improve oversight and ensure sensitive financial information remains under Nigerian jurisdiction.

While founders say they understand the push for stronger oversight and data sovereignty, many are also asking whether the country’s digital infrastructure is ready for such a transition.

Chibueze Damian, founder and CEO, Paymita, said his first reaction was concern.

“While I understand the objective of improving data sovereignty and regulatory oversight, Nigeria’s data centre ecosystem is still not there yet and also it is still developing and may not yet offer the same scale, reliability, redundancy, and cost efficiency available in some global cloud environments.”

Damian said infrastructure reliability is very critical for fintech businesses whose services depend on uninterrupted operations.

“Any policy that limits infrastructure choices without equivalent local alternatives could increase costs and operational risks.”

Still, he believes the CBN directive for data localisation could provide long-term benefits if it attracts sustained investment into Nigeria’s digital infrastructure.

“At the same time, I see the policy as an opportunity to bring in investment in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure over the long term.”

Roosevelt Elias, founder and CEO of Payble, views the directive differently. In his opinion, the CBN is not introducing a new policy but enforcing a direction it has signalled for years.

“This is not new policy. The CBN has signalled data localisation intent for years. What this circular does is put a deadline behind it, and that is the right move. A regulator that issues a directive and actually enforces it is better for the sector than one that files its own circulars away and moves on.”

He believes the conversation goes beyond data sovereignty and touches the structure of Nigeria’s digital economy.

“Nigeria loses an estimated $850 million annually in cloud revenue to foreign providers. That money funds data centres in Ireland and Virginia, not Lagos.”

Damian said regulators are ultimately aiming for stronger data security, regulatory access and better control over sensitive payment information. However, he stressed that local infrastructure must be able to meet the demands of fast-growing fintech companies if the policy is to achieve its goals.

He expects the first impact to be felt in infrastructure planning and compliance spending.

“Fintechs may need to review their hosting arrangements, data architecture, and partnerships to ensure compliance with the directive.”

Roosevelt also pointed to the fact that one of the biggest weaknesses in Nigeria’s payments ecosystem is not fraud but fragmented transaction records spread across different systems.

“A significant share of transaction data in Nigeria sits across fragmented processors and poorly reconciled systems. That makes it nearly impossible to detect systemic risk before it builds.”

The result, he said, is that many businesses process significant transaction volumes but remain invisible to lenders.

“The most consistent pattern I see is businesses doing real transaction volume with no credit identity, not because they are not creditworthy, but because their financial history never cohered into something a bank could read or act on.”

While he considers the CBN data localisation policy an important step, he cautioned that location alone will not solve every problem.

“The directive does not mandate standardised data formats or API-level regulatory access, and those things matter as much as geography.”

On the issue of compliance, both founders expect additional costs. Damian believes fintech firms will need to reassess their hosting arrangements and data architecture before the deadline arrives.

Roosevelt said the migration itself is manageable because domestic data centre providers already operate in Nigeria and additional capacity is being developed. His bigger concern is the recurring compliance burden that follows.

“The harder cost is the one that does not appear in any infrastructure budget: the compliance audit trail.”

He said ongoing security certification and audit requirements could become a permanent operational expense, especially for smaller operators without dedicated compliance teams.

Despite their concerns, both founders believe the directive could strengthen Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem if infrastructure investment keeps pace with regulation.

“I believe it can strengthen the ecosystem in the long term if accompanied by significant investment in local data centre capacity and reliability,” Damian said.

“Without that support, smaller startups may face higher costs and operational challenges that could slow innovation and growth in Nigeria fintech space.”

For Roosevelt, the biggest test electricity supply and operating conditions for data centres.

“The risk is on the power side. Nigerian data centres currently run diesel backup that can account for up to 40% of operating costs.”

He believes the next two years will determine whether the policy delivers lasting infrastructure improvements or simply increases costs for operators.

With the January 2027 deadline in sight, financial institutions are beginning to prepare for payment data to remain within Nigeria’s borders, but then, the infrastructure needed to support that purpose should be made ready in time.

The post Fintech Founders Welcome CBN’s Data Localisation Order but Worry about Execution Costs appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The newspaper said the incidents resulted from errors involving Amazon’s own tool, known as Kiro. In one case in mid-December, AWS customers experienced a 13-hour interruption.

Engineers had allowed the tool to carry out certain system changes. It then decided to “delete and recreate the environment”, the report said, which led to the disruption.

AWS disputed that account.

In an emailed response to Reuters, a company spokesperson said the disruption was brief and blamed it on user error. “This brief event was the result of user error-specifically misconfigured access controls, not AI.”

The spokesperson added that the interruption was “an extremely limited event” affecting a single service in one of AWS’s two mainland China regions. It did not impact compute, storage, database, AI technologies, or any other AWS services, the company said.

The December incidents follow an outage in October that disrupted Amazon’s cloud operations globally. That earlier failure affected Amazon’s own services and several high-profile apps, including Reddit, Roblox and Snapchat.

AWS is the cloud division of Amazon and supports a large share of the internet’s infrastructure. Because of that reach, even short interruptions can affect millions of users and businesses.

Both Amazon Web Services outages in December have drawn attention because they involved automation tools that can act with limited human input.

Cloud providers have been expanding the use of such systems to manage complex infrastructure. At the same time, customers expect stability and clear accountability when problems occur.

Competitors including Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are also developing automated tools to manage their platforms.

AWS maintains that the December disruption resulted from misconfigured access controls, not from the coding tool acting on its own.

The post Amazon Web Services Hit by Two December Outages Linked to Internal Coding Tool appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Payments now move seamlessly across platforms, identity systems verify millions of citizens, and a vibrant start-up ecosystem has attracted global attention and capital.

These are not small achievements. Yet, beneath this progress lies a harder question that Nigeria must now confront. Have we built enough depth to turn digital promise into sustained productive capacity?

The issue is no longer whether Nigeria can adopt digital tools. That debate has been settled. The more consequential question is whether the country can build, secure, and export digital value at scale.

As artificial intelligence and advanced digital services reshape the global economy, Nigeria faces a choice that will define the coming decade. We can become a producer of digital solutions that serve global markets, or remain largely a consumer and data source for platforms built elsewhere.

This is not a distant concern. Nigeria’s demographic advantage is real but time-bound. With roughly seventy percent of the population under the age of thirty, the country has one of the largest youth cohorts in the world.

At the same time, global demand for digital skills is accelerating, while established outsourcing hubs such as India, Eastern Europe, and parts of Southeast Asia continue to consolidate their lead. For Nigeria, moving from emerging promise to reliable delivery will require infrastructure that goes far beyond surface-level innovation.

Beneath the Progress

Nigeria has made meaningful strides in digital connectivity and basic services. Fintech platforms process billions of transactions annually, digital identity systems such as the NIN and BVN are becoming embedded in economic life, and regulators continue to refine frameworks to support innovation. These efforts form a necessary foundation. However, they represent only the first layer of a mature digital economy.

What remains underdeveloped is the deeper layer where trust, security, and institutional resilience reside.

This includes enterprise-grade platforms capable of supporting complex operations, data governance systems that balance innovation with protection, cybersecurity frameworks that safeguard critical infrastructure, and human capital with the depth to deliver at scale under real-world constraints.

The cost of this gap is increasingly evident. Many enterprises remain cautious about adopting local digital platforms due to trust and security concerns.

Cyber incidents continue to erode confidence. While thousands of young Nigerians are trained in basic digital skills each year, too few are equipped to deliver complex, export-ready solutions.

Investment often flows into consumption-driven models rather than infrastructure plays, not because ambition is lacking, but because the foundation still appears fragile.

Meanwhile, global competition is intensifying. The same technologies creating opportunity are also lowering barriers for faster-moving competitors.

Nigeria’s next phase of digital growth must therefore be deliberate, focused, and anchored on infrastructure that enables trust, depth, and resilience.

Trust as Infrastructure

Cybersecurity must be understood as economic infrastructure, not merely a technical concern. Without secure systems, enterprise-scale digital transformation cannot take root.

Without trust, sustained investment in Nigerian digital platforms will remain limited. And without resilience across banking, energy, telecommunications, and public sector systems, Nigeria’s digital sovereignty remains exposed.

Threats are becoming more targeted and sophisticated, yet a gap persists between regulatory intent and operational capability.

Indigenous expertise in areas such as operational technology security, cloud architecture, and threat intelligence remains limited. Heavy dependence on foreign vendors for sovereignty-critical systems creates both economic leakage and strategic vulnerability.

This challenge also presents an opportunity. The global cybersecurity workforce gap now runs into millions of unfilled roles.

Countries that build credible local capacity can not only secure their own infrastructure but also export expertise.

For Nigeria, trust infrastructure is not just about deploying tools. It is about embedding security by design, protecting critical assets such as power grids and telecom networks, establishing credible data governance frameworks, and developing local professionals who understand both global standards and local realities.

Across Africa, governments and enterprises are seeking cybersecurity partners they can trust culturally and strategically. Nigeria is well positioned to serve as a regional hub for secure digital infrastructure, but only if investment in capability development begins in earnest.

This calls for coordinated action. Government must elevate cybersecurity as a national priority backed by resources and institutional clarity. The private sector must invest in building expertise rather than simply reselling imported solutions.

Training institutions must focus on applied security skills that translate directly into operational readiness.

Nigeria’s digital talent challenge is not one of numbers alone. It is a question of depth. While many young people acquire introductory skills, employers continue to report gaps in system architecture, production readiness, and large-scale delivery. Knowing how to code is not the same as knowing how to design resilient systems, manage security risks, or deliver under enterprise constraints.

Short-term training programmes play an important role as entry points, but they cannot be endpoints. A productive digital economy requires layered capability.

Mid-level engineers who execute reliably, architects who design for scale, security specialists who understand evolving threats, and data professionals who can build robust pipelines. Global markets do not pay for potential. They pay for proven delivery.

Effective human capital development therefore looks different from the current approach. It requires work-integrated learning, sustained mentorship, and exposure to real production environments.

It demands specialisation pathways rather than one-size-fits-all training. Most importantly, it requires alignment with market demand in areas such as cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, DevSecOps, and advanced analytics.

The opportunity is immediate. Global demand for digital skills continues to outstrip supply, particularly in advanced roles.

Even a modest share of the global services market could translate into billions in export revenue and tens of thousands of high-value jobs for Nigeria. Achieving this will require coordination across government agencies, training providers, employers, and international partners, all focused on outcomes rather than credentials.

Building for the Long Term

Nigeria’s start-up energy is valuable, but it must be complemented by institution building. Sustainable digital economies are anchored by platforms and enterprises that compound value over time.

These businesses are often less visible than consumer apps, yet they form the backbone of productivity and resilience.

Institutional strength comes from repeatable processes, secure and interoperable systems, and business models that solve real problems profitably. It also depends on a policy environment that rewards long-term investment.

Predictable regulation, procurement frameworks that support indigenous capability, enforceable contracts, and incentives that favour production over extraction all matter.

There is also a strategic dimension. Digital infrastructure is national infrastructure. Excessive reliance on foreign platforms for critical systems introduces vulnerabilities that extend beyond economics. Building local capability supports both diversification and sovereignty.

From Potential to Production

Success over the next few years should be measured clearly. Growth in digital and software exports, Nigerian firms competing credibly for regional and global contracts, visible improvements in cybersecurity resilience, and talent pipelines producing work-ready professionals. These outcomes require focus and coordination, not slogans.

Nigeria has the talent, market scale, and entrepreneurial energy needed to succeed. What remains is the discipline to invest in foundations rather than appearances, in delivery rather than aspiration.

The shift from digital consumption to digital production will not happen by accident. It will require intent, patience, and collaboration.

The global digital economy will not wait. Nigeria’s demographic advantage is valuable, but it is not permanent.

The work of turning promise into productive capacity must begin now, with infrastructure that enables trust, depth, and long-term value creation.

The post Nigeria’s Digital Infrastructure Imperative: Turning Promise into Productive Capacity appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The two-day conference, themed “The Big Bold Step,” brought together telecoms operators, global technology firms, startups, investors, students and public-sector leaders at Landmark Event Centre to discuss what it will take for Africa to stop lagging and start building platforms of its own.

From keynote sessions to fireside chats and product showcases, the conference stressed that the limitations initially preventing African companies from competing at scale are fading away, but hesitation remains highly expensive.

Glory Olamigoke, co-founder and co-convener of Tech Revolution Africa, said the conference was designed to close a persistent gap in the ecosystem.

“We are trying to solve a number of problems and close a number of gaps, but perhaps the most critical one is bridging the gap between the early stage innovators, builders, founders in the ecosystem and the leaders in the space,” he said.

Unlike typical industry gatherings, Olamigoke said the event was intentionally structured to bring founders and decision-makers into the same room, while also extending its reach beyond established stakeholders.

“We are going all the way down to the secondary schools, the primary schools, because we believe that if we can start to culture these young ones, then we will be able to influence the next generation,” he said, pointing to the student tech debates introduced at this year’s edition.

That emphasis on long-term capacity building was reiterated through the day’s conversations, including a fireside chat with the Federal Government, represented by Lagos State Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Olatunbosun Alake.

Drawing from Nigeria’s reputation challenges abroad, Alake said that while technology is important, Africa’s potential cannot be realised without addressing surrounding challenges, including Nigeria’s image abroad.

“It’s not a technology conversation,” he said. “It’s a conversation that is at the very bottom of the motivation behind everything.”

He urged young professionals to engage the public sector rather than avoid it, describing the work as difficult but impactful. “By all means, do that, because you will have an impact, but make sure that your principles and your values remain strong,” he said.

MTN Nigeria’s keynote on the digital economy forecast for 2026, delivered by its Chief Information Officer, Shoyinka Shodunke, went beyond a focus on growth projections. 

Shodunke traced Africa’s marginal role across previous industrial revolutions and warned that the fourth leaves little room for delay.

“The inputs today are data, and where’s the factory? The factory sits in the cloud,” he said, adding that talent is no longer bound by geography and computing power no longer requires heavy capital outlay.

He pointed to cloud subscriptions available “at $50” compared to six-figure infrastructure costs in the past, arguing that scale is now accessible to startups and enterprises alike. But he warned that comfort with legacy revenue streams could still hold organisations back.

“You cannot live with a legacy mindset, a fear of disruption, or the comfort of mediocrity,” Shodunke said.

Using MTN as a case study, he explained how the telecoms giant has had to intentionally disrupt itself, moving beyond voice and data into cloud services, fintech and intelligent platforms layered on top of its network infrastructure.

The focus on infrastructure continued during MTN’s product showcase, where Onome Ologe and Tobechukwu Ajoku outlined the company’s local cloud services, emphasising data residency, naira-based pricing and predictable operating costs for Nigerian businesses.

“If you’re a CFO or a founder and you need to know cost accountability, you can go to sleep,” Ajoku said, noting that pricing remains stable regardless of foreign exchange volatility.

From infrastructure, the conversation at Tech Revolution Africa 2.0 moved into data and artificial intelligence during a presentation by Ligadata’s Mike Penner, who revealed the scale of its partnership with MTN Nigeria’s data operations.

“We now are running at 1.2 trillion pet records, 1.4 million records per second,” Penner said, describing a system designed to turn fragmented enterprise data into real-time, actionable intelligence.

“What we’ve done over the past few years at MTN together is something extraordinary,” he said, adding that the goal was not experimentation but measurable value creation.

Penner noted that African enterprises must treat data and knowledge as sovereign assets, warning against outsourcing intelligence without understanding what drives it.

That theme of sovereignty and control resurfaced during a panel on open innovation and hybrid platforms featuring executives from Red Hat and Redington. 

Speakers explained that open-source software and hybrid cloud models offer African companies flexibility without locking them into single platforms or geographies.

“Open source is driving innovation.” It is a condition of innovation, particularly for startups seeking speed without prohibitive expenses.

During a fireside chat on Global Tech & the African Market, Soji Maurice-Diya, CEO of ntel (NatCom), emphasized the need for Africa to focus on solving its own problems rather than simply chasing global trends.

He said, “Nobody’s going to solve our problems for us. Yes, we need global access, we need all the technology that’s available, taper all of the solutions and build our own solutions.”

Maurice-Diya added that African companies should prioritise innovation that addresses local challenges, ensuring technology creates measurable impact rather than just replicating global models.

Equinix’s Ayomide Jones, EMEA Business Development, West Africa, also spoke on the role of interconnection in Africa’s digital growth. She highlighted how networks, content and cloud providers work together to enhance modern businesses. 

“Everything we use nowadays to solve our problems is content. This is only possible because of interconnection,” Jones said. 

She explained that Equinix’s data centres in Lagos and across Africa enable startups and enterprises to connect to cloud services, financial systems, and global platforms without heavy upfront investment, creating the infrastructure that allows African businesses to scale quickly.

For all the talk of opportunity, speakers repeatedly returned to execution as the differentiator. “We always talk, so now, let’s go back and execute,” Olamigoke said.

Day Two of Tech Revolution Africa Conference 2.0 continues on Saturday, with further sessions on policy, investment, emerging technologies and the role of African enterprises in strengthening the continent’s digital economy.

The post Tech Revolution Africa 2.0: MTN, Experts Urge Continent to Harness Cloud, Data and Talent to Compete Globally appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The startup is targeting a problem many companies feel but rarely insure against, which is cloud outages that shut down operations, stall payments and damage trust within minutes. 

Mantas says downtime is no longer a technical issue. It is a clear financial risk, and it should be treated as one.

The seed round drew backing from Nuwa Capital, Suhail Ventures, Plus VC, OQAL Angel Syndicate and a group of strategic angel investors. 

The funds will be used to build out its product, strengthen risk models and begin early deployments across the Middle East, North Africa and North America.

Cloud infrastructure now underpins everything from payments to flight bookings. When it fails, the impact is swift. But most companies still rely on service-level agreements, legal clauses or internal fixes that do little to cover actual losses. 

That gap is seen in how businesses respond after an outage, confusion first, financial pain later.

Mantas is taking a different route. Its policies are based on parametric insurance. That means payouts are triggered automatically once verified outage conditions are met, without drawn-out claims or negotiations. If the cloud goes down and the agreed threshold is crossed, the payment follows.

“Cloud downtime is now one of the largest unpriced liabilities in the digital economy, as outages at AWS and Azure in late 2025 demonstrated,” said Basil Mimi, CEO and co-founder of Mantas. 

“Businesses have engineered their systems for scale and speed, but the financial layer has not kept up. Parametric insurance allows us to turn cloud outages into a measurable and insurable risk, giving companies certainty at the exact moment they need it most.”

The company focuses on digital-first sectors where constant uptime is necessary. These include fintech, airlines, e-commerce platforms, software providers and regulated enterprises. 

Alongside coverage, Mantas provides real-time monitoring that shows firms how exposed they are and where weaknesses sit, before something breaks.

The idea behind the company came from a moment. Mimi was trying to order food when an outage rippled across systems. What looked minor quickly turned into reputational damage and financial loss for the business involved. 

From his background as a software engineer, what l stood out was that the outage could be measured, but the loss was not insured.

That mismatch is growing. Cloud usage is becoming more concentrated, especially around a few large providers. In North America, outages are increasingly wide-ranging rather than isolated. 

In the Middle East, governments and companies are moving fast into cloud-first setups. In both cases, financial protection has lagged behind dependence.

Investors say this link between real-world infrastructure behaviour and insurance is what sets Mantas apart.

“Downtime is often treated as a technical issue, but for digital businesses it’s increasingly a financial one. Mantas’ approach stood out to us because it ties insurance coverage directly to how infrastructure behaves in the real world, rather than how it’s described on paper. 

“That’s an important step forward for this type of risk.” said Arnav Danthi, principal at Nuwa Capital.

Plus VC also pointed to the team’s execution and focus.

“At Plus VC, we back exceptional founders building category-defining companies, and Mantas is a strong reflection of that conviction. The company is redefining cyber insurance through its technology-driven MGA model, combining tailored coverage with predictive analytics to address one of today’s most critical risks, cloud downtime. 

“What impressed us most is the team’s deep domain expertise, strong execution mindset, and their ability to translate complex risk data into actionable insights that help businesses proactively mitigate exposure. 

“We are excited to support Basil, Abdallah, and the Mantas team as they scale this differentiated platform regionally and beyond,” said Hasan Haider, founder and managing partner at Plus VC.

Ayat Alsabbagh, Principal of Suhail Ventures also said: “We are proud to be partnering with Mantas in leading the shift towards data-driven business protection. 

“The combination of Mantas real-time analytics with parametric insurance will significantly help companies minimise losses from cyber threats and cloud outages in a rapidly growing market. We believe Mantas is setting a new standard for securing enterprise continuity through innovative insurance solutions.”

Mantas plans to expand its insurance coverage as cloud systems become more connected and failures spread faster across services. The goal is to help businesses that lean into complex digital infrastructure, so they are not left exposed when that infrastructure fails.

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With many companies looking for stronger safeguards after recent internet disruptions exposed weaknesses in single-cloud setups, the launch comes just in time.

Both firms said the service allows customers to build secure, high-capacity connections between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud in minutes. Before now, many organisations waited weeks to complete the same process due to the technical and approval delays tied to cross-cloud circuits.

Just over a month ago, AWS suffered a major outage on October 20 that spread through its US-East-1 region. A faulty update to DynamoDB’s API triggered DNS failures across the zone, breaking more than 113 AWS services and knocking out platforms such as Snapchat, Reddit, Coinbase and Alexa. 

Analysts estimate the disruption costs U.S. companies between $500 million and $650 million. For many firms, the incident revealed the risk of placing all operations on a single cloud provider.

In response, interest in multicloud resilience has grown. The new service blends AWS’ Interconnect–multicloud with Google Cloud’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect. The aim is to remove friction for organisations that want systems running across several clouds without slow setup cycles or unpredictable routing.

AWS vice president of network services, Robert Kennedy, said the development points to a major shift in how cloud platforms interact. “This collaboration between AWS and Google Cloud represents a fundamental shift in multicloud connectivity.”

Google Cloud also noted the benefit for companies moving large volumes of data between providers. Its vice president and general manager of cloud networking, Rob Enns, stated that the joint framework is meant to simplify workload mobility. Salesforce is one of the early adopters of the new model, according to Google.

Cloud competition is highly intense. AWS continues to top the global market with roughly 29–30% share, while Microsoft Azure holds about 20% and Google Cloud has climbed toward 13%. 

In the third quarter alone, the cloud infrastructure market was valued at around $107 billion, controlled largely by these three companies.

Heavy investment in infrastructure is expected to continue. Increasing demand for artificial intelligence is pushing cloud providers to expand data centres, improve capacity and strengthen network routes. 

AWS recently committed to a multi-year $38 billion partnership with OpenAI, offering access to large clusters of Nvidia GPUs. Google and Microsoft are making similar bets, as AI workloads remain one of the biggest drivers of cloud growth.

In working together on a cross-cloud standard, Amazon and Google have taken an unusual step. The two companies are long-standing competitors, but the new partnership shows a shared interest in reducing latency and making multicloud operations easier for enterprise customers. 

For large users like Salesforce, the ability to deploy cross-cloud links in minutes rather than weeks may prove decisive as businesses seek more resilient infrastructure after recent outages.

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The investment will fund the expansion of advanced data centres, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and talent development programmes across the country.

According to Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, the company’s focus is to meet the UAE’s surging demand for AI technology. “The biggest share of (the investment), by far, both looking back and looking forward, is the expansion of AI data centres across the UAE,” Smith told Reuters during the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu Dhabi. 

He added, “From our perspective, it’s an investment that is critical to meet the demand here for the use of AI.”

The new funding comes after Microsoft’s $1.5 billion equity investment in G42, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign AI company, last year, a deal that also gave the U.S. firm a board seat. 

G42 has faced some issues in Washington over previous ties with China, but Smith noted that the company had made “enormous progress” in aligning with U.S. legal and compliance standards.

Part of the funding will go towards providing Microsoft’s data centres with some of the most powerful chips available. Licences approved by both the Biden and Trump administrations now allow the company to export thousands of Nvidia GPUs to the UAE. 

Smith revealed that Microsoft currently holds the equivalent of 21,500 Nvidia A100 GPUs in the country, combining models such as A100, H100, and H200. More recently, approvals have been granted for an additional 60,400 A100-equivalent GB300 chips, which are expected to arrive within months.

Between 2023 and the end of this year, Microsoft will have spent $7.3 billion in the UAE. A further $7.9 billion is scheduled for deployment between 2026 and 2029, covering cloud expansion, data centre development, and local operating costs. 

None of this figure includes Microsoft’s involvement in Stargate UAE, a massive data hub announced earlier this year during U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gulf visit.

Smith, in a detailed post on Microsoft’s website, said the company’s approach in the UAE extends beyond technology. It includes driving local talent, building trust, and enhancing economic collaboration between the U.S. and the UAE. 

Microsoft’s workforce in the Emirates now includes nearly 1,000 employees of 40 nationalities, supported by a partner ecosystem of over 1,400 firms employing about 45,000 professionals nationwide.

The company recently established a Global Engineering Development Centre in Abu Dhabi and expanded its AI for Good Lab, focusing on research that benefits communities across Africa and the Middle East. Efforts include training language models for low-resource African languages and skilling one million people in the UAE by 2027.

In February, Microsoft and G42, alongside the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, founded the Responsible AI Future Foundation (RAIFF) in Abu Dhabi to promote ethical AI standards across the Global South. 

The foundation’s work complements an Intergovernmental Assurance Agreement (IGAA), a framework developed with U.S. and UAE input to ensure compliance with American export, cybersecurity, and data protection laws.

“Talent is the engine of AI leadership,” Smith wrote. “Attracting, nurturing, and building AI talent and know-how is essential to the UAE turning its vision of becoming a global leader into a reality.”

With this investment in the UAE, Microsoft is linking American innovation with Emirati ambition through what Smith described as “technology, talent, and trust.”

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