Africa’s data center landscape is rapidly evolving from small, isolated initiatives into a large-scale, fast-paced expansion.

According to Africa Telecom Review, between 2025 and 2030, capacity demand is expected to soar, driven by rising cloud adoption, generative AI workloads, and the growth of digital services.

Leading this momentum are Nigeria in West Africa and Egypt in North Africa, which are drawing significant investment, carrier-neutral facilities, and increased interest from hyperscalers, even as developers and governments work to overcome challenges in power, connectivity, and talent.

Nigeria: West Africa’s Gateway to Scalability

Nigeria’s data center market has rapidly shifted from discussions to active development. Driven by a vibrant digital economy, a large mobile-first population, and a dynamic startup ecosystem, Lagos has emerged as the prime location for both colocation facilities and hyperscale projects.

Nigeria’s data center market is expanding rapidly, with an estimated 136.7 MW capacity in 2025 and projections to reach 279.4 MW by 2030 at a 15% CAGR, driven by recent facilities such as Equinix’s LG2.3 expansion in Lagos, and upcoming projects including MTN Nigeria’s 1,500-rack center and new 38-MW and 24-MW facilities under construction.

However, growth is challenged by severe power constraints, as Nigeria’s grid, capable of about 6,000 MW, fails to meet the nation’s total demand (100,000 MW), forcing data centers to rely on costly backup generation like diesel and gas, with limited current adoption of renewables despite some efficiency gains.

Growing demand from enterprises, banks, telcos, and government platforms for low-latency, sovereign hosting is driving a fundamental shift away from dependence on foreign landing points and offshore cloud regions. Developers are answering this need with multi-purpose campuses that offer carrier neutrality, cloud on-ramps, and edge infrastructure tailored for content delivery, fintech, and e-commerce surges.

The business case is strong and industry studies consistently rank Nigeria’s market growth and capacity outlook among the fastest-rising on the continent through 2030.

Egypt: The North African anchor

Egypt’s strategic geography, sizeable domestic market, improving policy environment, and Digital Egypt initiative have made it a prime destination for large-scale data hub projects. Cairo and the Nile Delta corridor offer fiber connectivity routes to Europe and the Middle East, and recent corporate deals and project pipelines point to a race to build hyperscale-ready campuses.

As of mid-2025, Egypt has 15 operational submarine cables with three more under construction. The country is targeting 18 by year-end to enhance low-latency access to Europe and Asia and the data center market is projected to grow from USD 278 million in 2024 to USD 694 million by 2030 at a robust pace.

These Egyptian developments matter beyond national borders as a consolidated Cairo hub creates new routing options and resiliency for MENA traffic and provides another competitive alternative to Western European clouds and submarine routes. For pan-African architects, Egypt represents both a distribution point and a home market for AI-scale infrastructure.

Demand Drivers and the AI Inflection Point

Two intertwined forces are powering the boom. First, enterprise cloud migration, digital payments, and streaming service growth require regional capacity to meet latency and sovereignty demands. Second, the rise of AI, from localized language models to enterprise inference farms, is intensifying the need for dense compute that is both scalable and economical.

According to McKinsey, the expansion of data centers is crucial for Africa’s businesses and consumers to achieve global competitiveness. Its latest report estimates that an investment of USD 10 billion to USD 20 billion in new capital is required to achieve this. As a result, this investment could unlock an estimated revenue pool of USD 20 billion to USD 30 billion across the data center value chain by 2030.

Furthermore, the firm projects that AI-driven demand for data center capacity could grow significantly, increasing by 3.5 to 5.5 times its current base within the same timeframe, translating to a total installed capacity of 1.5 to 2.2 GW by 2030.

The Infrastructure and Policy Hurdles

Despite the strong growth outlook, developers are contending with significant challenges. Power availability and grid stability remain the biggest obstacles to scaling quickly, often forcing projects to rely on costly hybrid energy setups that blend grid supply, on-site generation, and renewable sources.

By 2025, industry analysts had already identified power constraints as a major factor slowing data center rollouts across EMEA, highlighting why energy planning has become the decisive factor for African deployments.

Additional barriers include slow permitting processes, land acquisition difficulties, high import costs for specialized equipment, and a shortage of skilled technicians trained in modern data center operations.

For investors, managing these operational risks alongside rising demand will require stronger public–private collaboration and more innovative financing models.

Local Partnerships and the Path Forward

The coming five years will be critical for Nigeria and Egypt. By simplifying regulatory processes, strengthening grid infrastructure, and promoting green energy, both countries can establish themselves as leading data center hubs in Africa. For operators and cloud providers, achieving success will rely on providing reliable, sovereign, and energy-conscious capacity that supports both enterprise needs and AI-driven workloads.

Nigeria and Egypt are leading the charge, each offering distinct advantages that, together, are reshaping the continent’s digital backbone. The potential rewards are substantial: improved latency, local cloud sovereignty, and a strong foundation for AI-powered economies.

Elon Musk’s xAI is under intense scrutiny after its AI chatbot, Grok, generated a flood of sexually explicit images through user prompts known as “digital undressing,” including some appearing to depict minors.

Grok

Users have exploited Grok to strip clothing from images—primarily of women, often real individuals—and pose them suggestively. Reports from last week highlighted cases involving apparent underage subjects, sparking alarms over child sexual abuse material.

This incident amplifies risks of unregulated AI on social platforms. Critics argue it breaches local and global laws, endangering vulnerable people, especially children.

xAI and Musk claim swift measures on X, such as content removal, account bans, and law enforcement collaboration. Yet, Grok persists in producing sexualised women’s images despite these pledges.

Musk’s public disdain for “woke” AI and censorship, coupled with reported internal resistance to Grok safeguards, fuels the fire. xAI’s diminished safety team reportedly shrank just before the surge.

Unique Integration Sparks Spread

Unlike Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Grok embeds directly into X, enabling public tagging and instant, visible replies. This accelerated non-consensual image sharing.

The trend ignited in late December with bikini requests, escalating to explicit manipulations without consent. Research reveals over half of Grok’s people images show minimal clothing—mostly women—with a disturbing fraction featuring apparent minors.

Grok has honoured some underage explicit prompts, clashing with xAI’s policy against sexualisation or child exploitation. Enforcement remains spotty.

Grok later admitted safeguard failures, deeming such content illegal and banned, while urging reports to authorities. Musk vowed repercussions for violators.

Regulatory Scrutiny Mounts

Detractors link Musk’s anti-moderation views to lax controls, noting his resistance to image-tool limits amid rising internal red flags.

Global regulators respond: Europe, India, and Malaysia probe; Britain’s media watchdog urgently engages Musk’s firms over explicit and child content.

Experts note existing tech can curb misuse but demands compromises like delayed replies and rigid filters. Absent these, platforms invite grave harm.

Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have finalized a consumer protection framework to swiftly resolve complaints from failed airtime and data purchases caused by network outages, system errors, or user mistakes.

NCC, CBN

Developed after months of consultations with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Value Added Service (VAS) providers, Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), and other stakeholders, the framework responds to surging reports of debits without service delivery and prolonged resolution delays.

It unites telecom and financial sectors by pinpointing root causes—like debits without service credits—and enforces a Service Level Agreement (SLA) defining roles for all parties in transactions and refunds.

Key provisions include refunds within 30 seconds for debited but undelivered airtime or data (extendable to 24 hours for pending cases), mandatory SMS notifications on transaction status, and remedies for errors such as recharges to ported numbers, wrong purchases, or misdirected transactions.

NCC Consumer Affairs Director, Mrs. Freda Bruce-Bennett, highlighted a new Central Monitoring Dashboard, co-hosted by NCC and CBN, for real-time tracking of failures, culprits, refunds, and SLA violations.

“Failed top-ups are among the top three consumer complaints. True to our mandate, we prioritized a rapid solution,” she stated.

Bruce-Bennett thanked stakeholders, especially CBN leadership, noting that MNOs and banks have already refunded over N10 billion pending formal approval.

Implementation begins March 1, 2026, following regulator approvals and technical integrations by MNOs, VAS providers, and DMBs.