Lagos attracts N415bn from tech giants in 30 days
Lagos State has attracted over $1 billion (about N415.4bn) worth of committed investments from technology giants in the last one-month, Chief Executive Officer of MainOne, Funke Opeke, has said.
Tech giants like Microsoft had last month opened their new African Development Centre (ADCs) in the state; Google, last week launched its state-of-the-art submarine internet cable, which is expected to boost Nigeria’s GDP by $10.1bn by 2025, and as well create 1.6 million jobs by 2025.
Also,
Equinix
recently completed its acquisition of MainOne with a $320m deal.
Funke affirmed that the Lagos State Government had actively championed the initiatives and investments in technology by creating an enabling environment for businesses to flourish, and by providing active support to investors in the state through its numerous programmes and initiatives.
To put the level of investment that Lagos would attract in the next few years into context, the VP Growth and Emerging Markets at Equinix, Judith Gardiner, at the recent launch of MainOne’s MDXi Lekki II Data Centre, stated that Amsterdam as a key hub with a population of one million people had nine Equinix data centres with over 106 megawatts (MW) capacity, noting that Lagos, with a population of over 20m, has the potential to far exceed that footprint.
Equinix, with a market capitalisation of $68.95bn as of April, 2022, is the world’s leading digital infrastructure company, and its presence in Lagos through MainOne will grow the digital landscape.
“When you look at the connected population and the growth potential of the numbers that remain unconnected, we see a large opportunity for growth in data consumption levels, and this is attracting global market players.
“MainOne is the market leader in Lagos already and we will continue to make investments with our new parent company Equinix to remain at the forefront of the increasing digitalisation happening on the continent,” Opeke stated.