This was revealed at a media roundtable held on Wednesday, February 5, 2026, days after Airtel Nigeria executives visited the Nxtra data centre site at Eko Atlantic. 

The facility, which Airtel says will have a capacity of 38 megawatts, is expected to be one of the largest in Nigeria when completed.

Speaking at the session, Airtel Nigeria’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dinesh Balsingh, said the company had increased the number of its network sites by close to 15% between December 2023 and now, with most of that growth happening in the last six months.

“We were a 15,000 site network. Now we’re about 17,000 sites,” Balsingh said. “And more investment on site building is going to come.”

He said the expansion has focused on rural communities, smaller towns and the outskirts of major cities, alongside capacity upgrades in urban areas where data use continues to increase.

According to Airtel, about 25% of its existing sites have already been upgraded with additional radio equipment to carry more data. The company said similar upgrades would continue over the next two years as demand grows.

Balsingh said Airtel had also added 10 megahertz of spectrum to its 4G network, increasing capacity by about 20%. He noted that most mobile data traffic in Nigeria still runs on 4G, even as the company accelerates its 5G rollout.

“In the last three months, we more than doubled our 5G sites,” he said, adding that Airtel plans to extend 5G coverage across about 25% of its network in the country’s top cities.

On rural connectivity, Airtel Nigeria said it is increasingly using satellite technology where fibre or microwave links are difficult to deploy. Harmanpreet Dhillon, chief technology officer of Airtel Nigeria, noted a recent deployment in Taraba State.

“It’s a remote town in Taraba, where we have connected the site,” Dhillon said. “Otherwise, laying a terrestrial network there, reaching there through fibre, was practically impossible.”

The telecom giant is already using Starlink satellite links to serve remote bank branches, oil facilities and security patrol locations, and has announced a direct-to-cell partnership that would allow satellite connectivity on mobile phones, subject to regulatory approval.

Ogo Ofomata, Airtel Business director said the company is focused on bringing connectivity to businesses in challenging locations, using every technology available. 

Stressing how Airtel Nigeria has solved challenges through fixed wireless access, she said, “Nobody needs to visit the site anymore, and the service runs 99.9% of the time,” she said. 

Satellite services, including Starlink, are helping to connect remote branches and support security patrols in the Niger Delta. According to Ofomata, these solutions are already impacting how businesses operate and improving lives in underserved areas.

On transmission infrastructure, the company revealed it is expanding its fibre footprint by about 25% and has completed nearly half of that work. 

Airtel Nigeria also announced a new internet traffic breakout point in the south of the country, using the 2Africa submarine cable landing in Akwa Ibom State.

“Traffic today that comes from the south and the north travels all the way to Lagos and breaks out,” Balsingh said. “So now you have that traffic go to the south and then break out.”

The additional breakout would improve resilience and reduce pressure on existing routes into Lagos.

Meanwhile, on the data and computing side, Airtel Nigeria operates a large private, fully virtualised data environment ahead of the Eko Atlantic data centre facility going live. 

Kemi Ariyo, director of IT at Airtel Nigeria, said the company currently runs significant computing and storage capacity in-house.

“We’ve got over 20,000 gigahertz of compute power,” Ariyo said. “We’ve got dedicated AI clusters and over 20 petabytes of data.”

She stressed that the infrastructure supports network automation, fraud detection and customer protection systems, including tools to block spam and malicious links.

Another highlight was the scale of Airtel Nigeria’s retail and distribution network. The company said its services are available through about 200,000 outlets nationwide, alongside roughly 4,000 exclusive stores and 250 flagship outlets.

“We want to ensure that every 100 metres that you go, you will see an Airtel outlet,” said Ismail Adeshina, director of Marketing at Airtel Nigeria.

On investment figures, Airtel plans to double its investments in Nigeria, both in the new data centre and beyond. Balsingh acknowledged ongoing challenges, including fibre cuts and power limitations, but said Airtel was working with regulators and government agencies to manage the risks.

“2026 will be another massive year of investments,” Balsingh said. “We are building scale, building resilience, building high capacity, and building the future.”

The company said it plans to hold further briefings later in the year to update the media on progress.

Startups are attracting more funding, digital infrastructure is growing, and recent tech developments show strong momentum in Nigeria’s tech sector.

This is a quick look at key tech news updates worth knowing as the year wraps up.

Funding and Investment: Africa’s Tech Funding Picks Up Again

African startups raised about $441.9 million from 59 deals in October 2025 alone. This is a 217% jump from the $139.4 million recorded in September.

Between January and October 2025, startups across the continent secured a total of $2.65 billion, up 56% from the $1.7 billion raised in the same period in 2024.

Around 76% of the October funding came as equity, meaning investors are buying ownership stakes again rather than offering short-term loans.

Unlike the hype-driven boom of 2021–2022, funding is now going to startups with clear business models, real revenue, and practical, infrastructure-focused solutions.

Nigeria is one of the top beneficiaries. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Nigerian startups raised over $100 million, with fintech leading the way. LemFi, a cross-border payments company, raised $53 million to expand into Europe and Asia.

Moniepoint also secured an additional $90 million in Series C funding this year, keeping its position as one of Africa’s largest fintech players.

As the year ends, many analysts expect investment activity to improve further in 2026 based on this year’s trends.

Beyond fintech, sectors such as clean energy, logistics, and health tech are also attracting steady funding. This shows investors are backing solutions that address Africa’s core challenges, including power, transport, payments, and connectivity.

Growing Infrastructure: Nigeria’s Digital Backbone Gets Stronger

While funding usually gets the headlines, infrastructure goes in another direction. Nigeria’s data centre capacity is expected to grow from the current 65–86 MW to over 400 MW in the next three to five years, according to recent reports. That is almost a six-fold increase and could change Nigeria’s role in West Africa’s digital economy.

The impact could be far-reaching. A $10 million data centre can generate about $17 million in economic output during construction and more than $39 million by its tenth year of operation. Beyond direct returns, increased capacity allows businesses to host data locally. This reduces costs, improves speed, and supports services such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and real-time data processing.

Telecom companies are already investing heavily. MTN Nigeria has begun work on a 150 MW data centre, while Airtel is building a 38 MW Nxtra Data Centre in Eko Atlantic.

Other firms are also entering the space, increasing competition and capacity. These projects place Nigeria as a serious alternative to European data centres, many of which are facing capacity pressure.

For Nigerian startups, this transition could be transformational. Stronger infrastructure supports the growth of SaaS platforms, fintech, AI, and health tech, all of which depend on fast and reliable data access.

It also helps reduce the long-standing problem of high cloud costs, often priced in dollars, which eat into local companies’ margins.

Nigeria’s National ID Transition: A Big Move with Real Risks

Alongside infrastructure growth, Nigeria is undergoing one of its largest technology transitions. The country is moving its National Identity Management System to an open-source platform known as MOSIP. The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) began this migration in July 2025 under an $83 million contract.

By October 2025, around 124 million National Identification Numbers had been issued. Migrating data of this scale, including biometric information, is one of the most sensitive tasks in digital government. Errors could disrupt access to banking, telecom services, and other systems that rely on NIN verification.

The transition has happened quietly. The old NIMC portal is no longer active, and its app has been removed from app stores.

This followed the launch of a new platform called NINAuth, but with limited public explanation. Banks, telecom operators, and fintech companies that depend on the old system are still unclear about integration timelines and requirements.

When a system this important is changing, poor communication creates uncertainty. Digital systems need stability, and institutions need clear guidance to adjust.

At the moment, Nigeria’s ID system sits in an unclear transition phase. Whether the change proves successful or disruptive depends largely on information that has yet to be shared.

Conclusion

The tech sector in Nigeria is not returning to the hype-driven peaks of 2021–2022, and that may be a positive shift. Instead, the focus is on building solid foundations through disciplined funding, improved infrastructure, and solutions to real problems.

The return of strong funding shows that investors still believe in African tech, but expectations are higher. At the same time, growing infrastructure, especially data centres, signals that Nigeria is preparing for a future where digital services are hosted locally, faster, and more reliably.

However, there are still challenges. The national ID transition carries real risks. Power supply issues continue to raise operating costs. Currency instability still makes long-term planning difficult. Even so, the direction is clear. Nigeria is investing in infrastructure, attracting capital, and building the support systems needed to compete across Africa and beyond.

The next phase is not about how much money is raised, but how effectively it is used, and whether today’s infrastructure can support tomorrow’s innovations.

Mr Balsingh made this revelation at an exclusive roundtable with senior media executives in Lagos. The event, which was held at Radisson Hotel Ikeja, brought together business editors, brands and consumer editors, ICT editors, and capital market editors from legacy print and the digital press for an elaborate discussion on the company’s quality of service innovations.

The special roundtable provided a valuable opportunity for journalists to engage directly with Airtel Nigeria’s leadership to gain deeper insights into the strategies deployed by the organisation to address Nigeria’s growing telecom and technology ecosystem.

During the conversations, Mr Balsingh noted the exponential explosion of data usage across Nigerian cities, particularly Lagos, as rapid urbanisation, digitisation, and mobile-first lifestyles continue to drive bandwidth consumption at unprecedented rates.

“Cities like Lagos are growing at lightning speed, more people, more businesses, more devices. At Airtel, we recognise that data is the new oxygen. That’s why we’re investing heavily in 5G and fibre to build a smart, scalable network that can carry the weight of Nigeria’s digital future. This isn’t just about faster internet; it’s about enabling education, healthcare, commerce, and opportunity through reliable, high-capacity connectivity,” he said.

The event spotlighted several other advancements such as the Airtel Business Network as a Service (NaaS) solution to boost Nigerian enterprise; collaborations with Starlink and OneWeb to deepen data coverage in remote areas; self-service customer experience products; AI-enabled user data and privacy protections; and the ongoing cashback programmes offered on the Smartcash mobile app.

Other programmes highlighted by Mr Balsingh and his team include Airtel’s groundbreaking AI-powered Spam Alert Service, which currently flags about 30 million spam SMS messages monthly; the NXtra Data Centre, which is set to go live in 2026 as the largest data centre in Nigeria; and the scale of education support projects like the N1 billion investment in the federal government’s Three Million Technical Talents (3MTT) initiative, Adopt-a-School, and the Reimagine Education programme which currently benefits over 1.5 million Nigerian learners of which over 880,000 are public elementary school pupils across the 1450 Airtel/UNICEF schools nationwide.

“Airtel Nigeria is responding with cutting-edge solutions to power the future of digital connectivity in urban areas as well as hard-to-reach areas across the country,” Balsingh said.

With the introduction of 5G-ready technologies and aggressive fibre rollout in major urban areas, he stated, Airtel is ensuring that Nigerians are not left behind in the global digital economy, stating that Airtel’s evolving network infrastructure is designed to serve the needs of modern consumers who demand high-speed, uninterrupted access to online services

This roundtable forms part of Airtel Nigeria’s broader commitment to innovation, customer focus, and thought leadership within the telecom industry.

As Nigeria continues to embrace digital transformation, Airtel remains focused on delivering multilayered solutions that match the speed and ambition of Nigerians.