MTN Nigeria on Tuesday in Abuja called on the public and private sectors to collaborate with it in addressing the challenges and opportunities inherent in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development in the country.
The Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dr. Karl Toriola, made the call in a paper entitled “Toward a United AI Strategy for Africa”, which he presented during a plenary session at the 2025 Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX).
The theme of the ongoing four-day event is: “Building Continental Digital Foundations for Equitable AI Development.”
While the summit is being held in Abuja between September 1 and 2, the exhibition will take place in Lagos from Sept. 3 to Sept. 4.
Toriola said Nigeria needed to invest in data infrastructure, power supply, and skills development to support AI growth in the country.
He noted that the country required patience and capacity to build and implement AI solutions to maximise its potential.
“I would love to see a headline that says Nigeria has articulated a clear strategy on how to advance artificial intelligence. I would like to read that it has harnessed resources, both private and public, and is executing them with discipline and commitment,” he said.
Toriola observed that Nigeria faced a significant gap in data centre capacity, with an estimated 90-megawatt shortfall.
The CEO also identified the country’s poor power supply as a major challenge, stressing that AI data centres required massive amounts of energy, sometimes equivalent to the output of one nuclear power plant per data centre.
He advised that the country should build sovereign data ecosystems, which would require substantial computing infrastructure.
“There is about a 90-megawatt gap in terms of data centre capacity today. It is estimated that data consumption from AI will be 16 times what we are consuming today.
What we, as a nation, must do is build sovereign data ecosystems, which require computing infrastructure collectively. We do have some connectivity, but there is still a long way to go.
AI data centres being built today are on such a scale that they require the equivalent of one nuclear power plant per centre. And that is where we have a huge gap,” he said.
According to him, MTN will continue to invest, execute, and deliver solutions to consumers, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and large enterprises to enable them to tap into AI opportunities.
Industry players across the continent and beyond—including academia, governments, and companies—are participating in the programme.
