An Information Technology Expert, Mr Ikechukwu Nnamani, on Monday urged the Federal Government to deliberately and proactively move towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulation.
Nnamani, who was a former President, of the Association of Telecommunications Companies in Nigeria (ATCON), made this appeal during an interview with newsmen in Lagos.
He said that this was necessary for the country to fully harness the benefits of its digital economy.
Nnamani is also the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty, Nigeria, an Information Technology (IT) company.
He noted that people developing ethical solutions for AI were few when compared to people producing non-ethical solutions and taking advantage of them to make money.
Nnamani explained that this trend was not peculiar to Nigeria, but also the reason most developed countries were seeking ways to regulate AI as soon as possible.
“Even the U.S. has made major effort, both in its congress as well as the executive, to ensure there is work being done on AI safety and best practices.
“The concern is that some companies or individuals focus solely on the benefits AI brings to them, without considering the potential consequences or ethical implications of its use.
“From an ethical perspective, governments worldwide, including the U.S, are actively developing policies to prevent AI misuse and to ensure they can address its implications effectively.
“In Nigeria, regulation is still a work in progress, but I don’t see it as a major challenge since AI adoption is still in its early stages,” Nnamani said.
He urged the government to assess potential harm from emerging technologies and mitigate risks by taking steps to ensure ethical application development.
On displacement of jobs by AI, the ex-ATCON boss said it could only encourage people to retrain themselves to be able to leverage AI for enhanced efficiency and cost-effectiveness, not necessarily take their jobs.
He said that there had been growth in the number of operational data centres in recent years.
He, however, added that the current capacity still fell short of meeting the demands of the country’s rapidly expanding digital economy.
A data centre is a facility that provides shared access to applications and data using a complex network, computer, and storage infrastructure.
AI and data centres have a symbiotic relationship. Data centres offer the necessary computing power and resources for AI workloads, such as machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing.
They also enable scalability for AI applications, allowing them to handle increasing amounts of data and traffic.
“A report revealed that Nigeria requires at least 600 megawatts of IT load to support its economy, population, and GDP as a digital economy.
“However, current capacity stands at approximately 30 megawatts, indicating a significant shortfall.
“Comparatively, cities like Toronto boast of over 30 data centres, whereas Nigeria lags behind. This underscores the reality that Nigeria has only scratched the surface in building a truly digital economy,” he said.
Nnamani said that the data centre sub-sector needed a lot of people with foresight to draw investors and put up infrastructure.
He noted that a lot of support was needed from the government’s side as well.
Nnamani said some of the key challenges facing data centre operations in Nigeria included Power and Foreign Exchange (forex), which needed to be tackled by the federal government.
“The truth is that doing business in Nigeria is challenging. Everybody knows that and the biggest challenge, probably, is forex,” he said.
NAN
