Digital Parks Africa enters Nigeria’s data centre race with Lagos facility

Digital Parks Africa (DPA), the data centre business associated with Master Power Technologies Group, is expanding into West Africa with plans to develop a new carrier-neutral data centre in Lagos.

The company announced the development of Nigeria Data Centre 1 (NDC1) at ITW Africa in Kenya on September 8, describing the project as an expansion of its longstanding presence in Nigeria, where the group has operated since 2001.

DPA said NDC1 is being developed to serve businesses, financial institutions, banks, cloud providers and connectivity companies requiring resilient infrastructure close to the markets they serve.

The company did not disclose the investment value, planned capacity or expected commissioning date of the Lagos facility.

What they are saying

Menno Parsons, founder and chief executive officer of Digital Parks Africa, said the investment represents the next phase of the group’s presence in Nigeria.

• “Our investment in Nigeria is much more than a new facility. It is the next step in our longstanding commitment to the region, and for our broader vision for Africa’s digital future,” Parsons said.

He said the company’s more than two decades of operating experience in Nigeria had given it an understanding of the infrastructure challenges facing the market and the need for facilities capable of supporting the country’s expanding digital ecosystem.

DPA said NDC1 will be a carrier-neutral facility, allowing customers and connectivity providers greater flexibility in choosing how they connect and scale their operations.

The company said the facility is intended to support critical digital services, cloud access, connectivity and data driven operations as demand for digital infrastructure increases across Nigeria and the wider African market.

Get up to speed

DPA’s entry comes as Nigeria’s data centre market attracts a growing pipeline of investments from local, regional and global operators, driven by increasing cloud adoption, digital payments, artificial intelligence and demand for locally hosted infrastructure.

• Equinix announced in November 2025 that it would invest $22 million in a new Lagos facility, LG3, as the first phase of an approximately $100 million investment programme in Africa over two years. The facility is designed to provide additional connectivity between Nigerian businesses, cloud providers and Equinix locations globally.
• Open Access Data Centres also last year announced plans for a $240 million, 24MW facility in Lagos, to be developed in two 12MW phases. The company said the project is intended to provide hyperscale and AI-ready capacity.
• Kasi Cloud Datacenters also unveiled its Lekki data centre in May this year, with the facility designed to scale to about 100MW of critical IT capacity. The project is positioned as a hyperscale-ready, AI-capable, carrier-neutral data centre platform.

The expansion is concentrated heavily in Lagos, which remains Nigeria’s dominant data centre market. Lagos State said in May 2026 that about 146MW of additional data centre capacity was in the pipeline and that it was targeting more than 250MW of capacity by 2030.

What you should know

The latest investment comes ahead of a major regulatory shift that is expected to increase demand for local data centre and cloud infrastructure.

• The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had directed banks, fintech companies, mobile money operators, payment processors and other licensed payment service providers to store and manage payment transaction data generated in Nigeria on local servers.
• The affected institutions are required to achieve full compliance by January 1, 2027. The directive was contained in a circular issued by the CBN’s Payments System Supervision Department in June 2026.

The policy is expected to force some financial institutions and payment companies that currently rely on offshore infrastructure to migrate relevant workloads to data centres within Nigeria.