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INFRAGORA Global Capital, a South African infrastructure investment firm, plans to begin construction of two AI-ready data centres in Nigeria by the second quarter of 2027, as it advances a project estimated to cost between $650 million and $1 billion.
The proposed facilities, part of the firm’s AFRIDATA data centre platform, are in the final stages of detailed assessment and design, with financial close expected before construction begins, Kiel Odiogo, INFRAGORA’s senior managing director, told TechCabal in an email response.
The proposed facilities rank among Nigeria’s largest planned data centre investments, reflecting growing demand for computing infrastructure to support artificial intelligence (AI), cloud services and enterprise data processing. Other projects in development include Kasi Cloud’s 100-megawatt data centre, backed by an estimated $250 million in initial capitalisation.
The INFRAGORA project is the proposed flagship of a continental platform estimated at $3 billion to more than $5 billion. The company plans to develop between 300MW and 550MW of additional data centre capacity across markets including Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, South Africa and Egypt.
However, the company has not disclosed how much funding it has secured or identified its financial backers, beyond saying the project has attracted commitments and support from regional and global institutional investors.
“We cannot disclose specific funding secured due to confidentiality obligations,” Odiogo said, adding that capital mobilisation was on track.
The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is funding a feasibility study for the project, covering technical and financial assessments of the proposed facilities, including their capacity to support AI workloads, according to Odiogo.
The agency’s support is also intended to create opportunities for American technology companies supplying AI software, cloud infrastructure, computing hardware, networking equipment, and cybersecurity solutions.
The challenge of reliable power
Beyond financing, the project’s commercial viability will depend heavily on securing reliable and affordable electricity.
INFRAGORA plans to develop the data centres alongside a 160–200-megawatt independent power plant using gas and renewable energy, supported by battery storage. It intends to source electricity through Ocha Energy, its sister energy platform, and use long-term power purchase agreements to manage costs.
“INFRAGORA’s strategy is to have independent power deployment accompanying each AFRIDATA project roll-out across the continent under the Ocha green energy platform,” Odiogo said. “This will be supported by a robust battery storage backbone.”
The power plant is expected to supply the data centres’ initial 80–100MW capacity, with excess electricity potentially sold to other infrastructure providers, energy merchants and the national grid where feasible.
By integrating power generation with data centre development, INFRAGORA hopes to improve reliability and offer customers competitive prices. However, the company has not disclosed the expected cost of electricity, the renewable component of its energy mix or the power plant’s development timeline.
INFRAGORA intends to position the facilities as wholesale infrastructure for Nigeria’s digital economy, supplying computing, cloud and disaster recovery services to local data centre operators, enterprises, government agencies, small businesses and international cloud providers.
“Current estimates suggest that 55% of African enterprises now run at least half of their workloads in the cloud,” Odiogo said. “The trend for African firms is adopting a sovereign-first hybrid approach from the outset – keeping sensitive data in local data centre facilities while using public clouds for elastic workloads.”
The company says the facilities will meet Tier III+/IV standards, which indicate high levels of infrastructure reliability, redundancy, and resilience. Tier III facilities are designed to allow maintenance without disrupting operations, while Tier IV facilities provide greater fault tolerance, enabling them to withstand individual equipment failures without service interruption.
These capabilities are critical for data centres running AI workloads, which require consistent power and cooling. However, the company has not disclosed the planned GPU capacity, storage specifications or network performance targets.
The investment comes as businesses increasingly adopt cloud services and AI applications that depend on processing data quickly. Hosting computing infrastructure closer to users can reduce latency and improve the performance of applications used in financial services, enterprise software, and other data-intensive industries.
Africa accounts for less than 2% of global data centre capacity, according to USTDA, leaving businesses reliant on infrastructure outside the continent for some computing and storage needs.
INFRAGORA argues that local infrastructure will help address this gap while supporting data sovereignty. Odiogo said African and institutional investors would retain ownership and control of the project, which would operate under applicable data protection laws and government regulations.
However, the project will use American technology, highlighting a distinction between owning physical infrastructure and controlling the hardware, software and platforms that run on it.
USTDA’s involvement is also intended to strengthen opportunities for American companies in Africa’s growing AI market. Whether the project reduces Nigeria’s dependence on foreign technology providers will therefore depend partly on its technology choices, data-access arrangements and the extent to which local businesses develop their own capabilities.
A wider bet on African talent
INFRAGORA’s plans extend beyond computing infrastructure to an ICT business park and an academy offering training in AI, machine learning and information security.
The AFRIDATA Academy is envisioned as a regional centre of excellence for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and information security, combining an ICT training academy with an innovation hub for startups. Designed to support demand for the AFRIDATA Datacenter, it will train government employees, businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and young entrepreneurs to develop the skills needed to adopt AI and build local applications.
“The AFRIDATA Academy will combine world-class AI training with job-placement pathways and startup support, helping governments and businesses adopt AI while enabling entrepreneurs to develop local solutions for key industries,” Odiogo said.
The company expects the broader platform to create tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs, particularly for young people and women. It also plans to support startups developing AI applications for sectors including agriculture, healthcare, energy and financial services through an innovation fund.
In Nigeria, the company says it is working with Lagos Business School on the AFRIDATA Platform continental roll-out. Its wider continental programme involves a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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