MTN Targets Cloud Market With New $325M Data Center in Nigeria
TLDR
- MTN Nigeria has completed Phase 1 of its Dabengwa Sifiso Data Centre project, marking a $100 million investment in Nigeria’s data hosting market
- Tier III-certified facility delivers 4.5MW IT load capacity, houses 780 racks over three floors, and is designed to scale to 9MW
- MTN plans to offer self-orchestration capabilities through its MTN Cloud platform, enabling startups and developers to provision resources similarly to AWS or Google Cloud
MTN Nigeria has completed Phase 1 of its Dabengwa Sifiso Data Centre project, marking a $100 million investment in Nigeria’s data hosting market. The Tier III-certified facility delivers 4.5MW IT load capacity, houses 780 racks over three floors, and is designed to scale to 9MW with Phase 2 targeting Tier IV certification.
The facility, named after former MTN Group CEO Sifiso Dabengwa, signals MTN’s official entry into Nigeria’s commercial data centre space. The $235 million project aims to support local cloud infrastructure and offer enterprise services such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), AI processing readiness, and carrier-neutral hosting.
MTN plans to offer self-orchestration capabilities through its MTN Cloud platform, enabling startups and developers to provision resources similarly to AWS or Google Cloud. With a modular design and compliance with Nigeria’s data protection regulations, the centre targets clients in finance, healthcare, and government.
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Key Takeaways
Nigeria loses an estimated $350 million annually to offshore cloud hosting, as companies depend on foreign hyperscalers like AWS and Azure. MTN’s in-country data centre is designed to reverse that trend. By pricing services in naira and ensuring compliance with local laws, the telco is making a case for cloud localisation. MTN joins a competitive market dominated by MainOne (Equinix), Rack Centre, and OADC, but its telecom infrastructure gives it a network edge. MTN’s facility supports AI-ready workloads, financial-grade security, and is carrier-agnostic, reducing vendor lock-in. The goal is to enable enterprise and government clients to retain data sovereignty while supporting startups with faster go-to-market solutions. MTN bets that its capital, resilience, and infrastructure scale will help it secure a strong position in Nigeria’s fast-growing cloud economy.
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