Airtel Nigeria has unveiled plans to construct the region’s largest hyperscale data center in Lagos, intensifying its rivalry with MTN Nigeria and reshaping the digital infrastructure landscape across West Africa.

The new facility, set to rise in Eko Atlantic City, will boast a massive 38-megawatt IT load capacity—more than eight times the size of MTN’s recently launched $235 million Sifiso Dabengwa data center, which currently leads the region with 4.5 MW, expandable to 9 MW.

Airtel’s project is being hailed as a major leap forward for Nigeria’s digital economy and a bold step in positioning the country as a continental tech and data hub.

Unlike MTN’s focus on cloud hosting for enterprise clients, Airtel is specifically targeting artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The centre is being built from the ground up to support GPU servers, which are critical for the processing power and cooling demands of advanced AI workloads.

“We’re building not just for today’s digital needs, but for tomorrow’s AI-powered world,” said Airtel Nigeria CEO Dinesh Balsingh. Ogo Ofomata, Director of Airtel Business, added that Eko Atlantic’s secure environment and reliable power infrastructure made it the ideal location for a hyperscale facility of this magnitude.

The move marks a new phase in Nigeria’s telecom sector competition—one that extends beyond mobile networks into high-capacity data infrastructure. It also signals a broader trend of African telcos investing heavily in digital infrastructure to meet growing demands for data, cloud services, and AI.

Industry analysts say the growing rivalry between Airtel and MTN will ultimately benefit Nigeria and the region by lowering costs, enhancing service reliability, and expanding access to digital services.