Nigeria to get two new data centres in a $1bn investment

INFRAGORA Global Capital, a South African infrastructure investment firm, plans to begin construction of two AI-ready data centres in Nigeria by the second and third 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.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the revised construction timeline of Q2–Q3 2027. The company had previously indicated Q2 2027.

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Mastercard, the global payments giant, and Interswitch, a Nigerian payments infrastructure provider, have partnered to bring Google Pay to eligible Mastercard cardholders in Nigeria, allowing customers to make contactless payments using Android smartphones.

The product will allow users to add supported bank cards to Google Wallet, Google’s digital wallet application, and pay at compatible terminals without presenting physical cards.

The integration uses Mastercard’s tokenisation technology, which replaces sensitive card information with unique digital credentials to protect customer details during transactions. Interswitch provides the infrastructure connecting participating banks to the tokenisation and payment processing systems.

The launch comes as Nigeria’s digital payments market continues to expand.

According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), the country’s payments switch, instant payment transactions grew to ₦284.9 trillion ($212 billion) in the first quarter of 2025, up 21.5% from ₦234.5 trillion ($174.5 billion) in the previous year.

The growth reflects Nigeria’s increasing reliance on real-time bank transfers, which have become a dominant part of the country’s digital payments ecosystem.

Point-of-sale (PoS) infrastructure has expanded alongside digital transactions. By March 2025, Nigeria had 5.9 million deployed PoS terminals, more than double the number recorded the previous year.

PoS transaction values reached ₦10.51 trillion ($7.8 billion) in the first quarter of 2025, about four times the value recorded in the previous year.

Google Pay’s entry introduces a different payment experience, enabling customers to complete supported purchases by tapping their phones rather than transferring money or using physical cards.

“Our work has helped establish the issuer connectivity, tokenization and payment processing capabilities required to bring ‘tap-to-pay’ and wallet-based payments to Nigerian consumers,” said Akeem Lawal, managing director of payment, switching and processing at Interswitch.

Kari Tukur, Mastercard’s country manager for West Africa, said the collaboration would give eligible customers another way to pay while protecting their card details.

Unlike bank transfers, which require customers to enter account details or initiate payments through banking apps, Google Pay allows users to pay by holding their Android smartphones near compatible point-of-sale (PoS) terminals.

The service uses near-field communication (NFC), a wireless technology that enables devices to exchange payment information over short distances.

Google Pay is not new to Nigeria’s payments ecosystem. Interswitch previously integrated the service into its online payment gateway, enablingbusinesses to accept Google Pay payments.

The latest rollout extends access to locally issued cards, with Google’s list of supported Nigerian payment methods now including eligible Mastercard cards issued by tier-1 banks such as FirstBank, Guaranty Trust Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), and Zenith Bank.

Customers need compatible Android devices with NFC technology to make contactless payments.

The launch also comes as Interswitch expands its tokenised payment infrastructure. On October 26, the company announced collaborations with five Nigerian banks—GTBank, Wema Bank, ProvidusUnity Bank, Zenith Bank, and FirstBank—to support tap-to-pay transactions across digital wallets and banking applications.

Moniepoint, the Nigerian financial services company, is restructuring its engineering and product teams, with some roles set to become redundant. The company is offering affected employees a voluntary exit package and plans to complete the process by the end of December, according to two employees with direct knowledge of the matter.

The restructuring, announced internally to staff on Monday, October 19, introduces smaller teams responsible for building and operating products from end to end, alongside new platform architect roles to oversee shared technology systems.

Moniepoint has grown from a single product into a financial services group spanning payments, banking, credit and business management. It now wants smaller teams with clearer responsibility for delivery and operations, rather than relying on multiple layers of coordination and sign-off.

A Moniepoint spokesperson said the restructuring should not be regarded as a layoff. The company did not disclose how many employees would be affected.

Staff were offered five months’ salary to resign voluntarily. However, Moniepoint can reject applications from employees whose skills it still needs, according to two employees who asked not to be named to speak freely. The voluntary exit window closed on Friday, October 23, and staff will be told whether their roles are affected between November 2 and November 11.

“As part of Moniepoint’s regular strategic review of operations, the management is restructuring the engineering and product functions for the next stage of growth,” the company said in a statement shared with TechCabal on Monday. “The company is moving to a structure of platform groups made up of small, focused product-area teams, each owning what it builds from end to end.”

Moniepoint heavily hired engineers and product managers as it grew to a unicorn valuation, building several financial products and a range of internal tools. As the teams grew, so did the layers of review and sign-off that slow large tech companies down.

The restructuring is Moniepoint’s answer. Small teams will each own a product from build to operation, and new platform architects will design and oversee the shared systems beneath them.

Much of a product manager’s job is coordination: writing specifications, setting priorities, and passing work from design to engineering to quality assurance. When one team owns a product end to end, there are fewer handoffs, and fewer people are needed to manage them.

“This model is designed for a business of the company’s size and ambition, giving teams greater autonomy and clearer accountability, while enabling faster product development, greater operational reliability, more consistent service for a growing customer base, and smoother expansion into new markets,” Moniepoint added in the statement.

Platform ownership

Moniepoint said the new structure requires fewer roles in some areas while creating others. As a result, some existing roles will become redundant. The company said it would consider affected employees for open positions elsewhere in the business and would initiate redundancy consultations only where it cannot identify suitable roles.

Employees in backend, frontend, mobile and quality-assurance engineering, as well as product management, are affected. The changes apply across the countries where Moniepoint operates.

Employees will be assessed against written criteria covering delivery and adaptability, work quality, their track record, and length of service. Engineering leaders will score staff, and the human resources team will review the scores across teams. Before any role is confirmed as redundant, the company will check for open roles that could suit the person.

The restructuring comes as Moniepoint expands its financial services business and decides where to deploy its resources.

Founded in 2015 as TeamApt, Moniepoint became a unicorn in October 2024 after a $110 million Series C round. The company says its subsidiaries process more than $400 billion in digital payments a year. In March, it bought a 78% stake in Kenya’s Sumac Microfinance Bank and, in August, phased out MonieWorld, its UK remittance product, less than 18 months after launch.

The job cuts come as Moniepoint continues to hire. The company hired more than 120 people in October, according to one employee, and brought in several heads of department from outside Nigeria, according to another. In May, Tosin Eniolorunda, Moniepoint’s chief executive officer, said the company was struggling to fill about 500 vacancies, later clarifying that the shortage was in senior technical talent.

Earlier this year, Moniepoint discussed internally how artificial intelligence could streamline product management, according to one employee. While the company did not name AI a driver of the restructuring, the discussion reflects a wider question of whether automation and new ways of organising work will enable technology companies to deliver more with smaller teams. In February, Zap Africa, a Nigerian cryptocurrency startup, cut 44% of its workforce as “part of an AI-driven efficiency shift.”

Wider shift

Moniepoint is not the first technology company to argue that smaller teams and clearer ownership can improve productivity. In February, Block, the parent company of Square and Cash App, cut 4,000 jobs, about 40% of its workforce. Chief executive Jack Dorsey linked the cuts to AI tools and a move towards “smaller and flatter teams.”

Across Africa, companies have also reduced staff while trying to improve profitability or refocus operations. Branch laid off employees in Kenya and Nigeria in May, despite reporting about $30 million in profit in 2025. That same month, Jumia said it would cut about 200 jobs as it incorporated AI into operations, logistics, finance, and marketing.

TechCabal Insights found that restructuring was the most common reason African tech companies gave for layoffs between January 2023 and March 2026, while one cited AI. If smaller teams work for the companies that try them, and AI keeps getting better at the specialised tasks those teams used to share, more African tech companies will hire fewer people to do the same work.