The Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty, Nigeria, Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, said that there are not enough Data centre in Nigeria for the quest of a truly digital economy to be operational.
According to him, Nigeria just have about 30 megawatts worth of it saying that “the reality is that we have not started, we are not even anywhere close to starting, if we really understand what needs to be done to have a truly digital economy.”
Nigeria should have at least 600 megawatts of IT load, giving the size of her economy, population, GDP, and what it should be if we are a truly digital economy adding that the Data Center sub-sector needs a lot of people with foresight to draw investors.
The Digital Realty CEO told the Executive of Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) during a courtesy call meant to appreciate Digital Realty for supporting the Association’s ICT Growth Conference, that Nigeria have witnessed an increase in the number of Data Centers in the past few years but that the size of the economy indicates they are not enough.
Speaking also on the growing embrace of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across the world, he said there is the need for urgent regulation, stressing that the United States of America and other countries are actively involved in creating the right policy.
He that people developing ethical solutions for AI are few compared to people producing non-ethical solutions.
He stated that as such most developed countries are seeking ways to regulate AI as soon as possible adding that the American Congress is work on AI Safety and Best Practices.
Nnamani observed that some companies or individuals are only looking at AI from the value it adds to them, without thinking of what the consequences are.
“In Lagos, for instance, there is a lot of progress in the build-out of this infrastructure, but you hardly see much in every other State. So there is still a lot of work that still need to be done”, he said.
While lamenting about the easy of doing business in Nigeria, he said that access to FOREX is about the biggest challenge saying that “electricity power that you assume should be available to you if you are a business person, you pay for the power and it won’t be delivered.”
