Africa’s digital infrastructure development will require stronger regional coordination on regulation, investment, connectivity and power to translate growing capacity into economic activity, industry stakeholders have said.
The call was made at the third edition of Hyperscalers Convergence Africa (HCA) 2026, held under the theme, “Africa’s Great Digital Buildout,” where policymakers, regulators, investors, development finance institutions, technology companies and infrastructure operators examined the continent’s digital infrastructure needs.
Participants said the expansion of data centres, subsea cables, cloud platforms and fibre networks across Africa would have limited economic impact if not supported by reliable electricity, affordable broadband, harmonised regulations and stronger connections between infrastructure providers and businesses.
A key recommendation from the conference was for African countries to move away from developing digital infrastructure as isolated national projects and instead build interconnected systems that allow capacity to move across borders.
The conference identified seven areas requiring greater attention, including cross-border internet peering, regulatory alignment, infrastructure project preparation, mobilisation of domestic institutional capital, expansion of terrestrial fibre networks, support for local cloud and artificial intelligence workloads, and wider access to digital infrastructure for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
The participants called for incentives that would encourage internet service providers to peer across national borders, arguing that greater regional interconnection could reduce the cost and complexity of routing African internet traffic.
They also called for greater alignment of regulatory processes, fiscal frameworks, technical standards and tariffs across African markets to make cross-border investment and operations more predictable.
According to the conference, the continent also needs more funding for early-stage project preparation to help infrastructure projects become investment-ready, while pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds and development finance institutions should be more closely connected to infrastructure developers to increase the flow of African institutional capital into the sector.
The recommendations further highlighted the need to extend subsea cable capacity inland through terrestrial and metropolitan fibre, open interconnection arrangements and resilient cross-border routes.
Speaking during the opening keynote, Temitope Osunrinde, executive director of Africa Hyperscalers, said the infrastructure decisions being made now would determine the continent’s digital development.
“Africa’s digital future depends on the infrastructure choices we make today. Delivering reliable power, resilient connectivity, secure data centres and affordable computing will require governments, investors and industry to work together,” Osunrinde said.
He added that bilateral agreements remained useful but argued that multilateral coordination on policy, regulation and investment would be necessary to develop interconnected infrastructure at scale.
The conference also identified the development of computing infrastructure, power, data centres, skills and data governance as necessary to support the growth of locally hosted cloud and artificial intelligence workloads.
It further stressed that digital infrastructure investment should reach micro, small and medium-sized enterprises through affordable broadband, cloud services, reliable power and access to suitable digital devices.
Nigeria’s infrastructure opportunity
Nigeria featured prominently in discussions around Africa’s digital infrastructure expansion, with participants highlighting the proposed 90,000-kilometre fibre backbone under Project BRIDGE as one of the initiatives that could expand connectivity across the country and support wider regional integration.
The conference also pointed to cross-border peering incentives and the development of an Oracle cloud region in Nigeria as developments that could increase local computing and data-centre capacity.
The discussions were subsequently extended to International Telecoms Week Africa in Nairobi, where Africa Hyperscalers convened sessions on digital infrastructure regulation and Nigeria’s digital infrastructure opportunities.
One of the sessions, titled “Regulation That Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities,” examined how regulatory frameworks could support investment in digital infrastructure across African markets.
The session featured Vincent Olatunji, national commissioner and chief executive officer of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission; Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director-general and chief executive officer of the National Information Technology Development Agency; Tony Emoekpere, president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria; Mercy Ndegwa, public policy director for East and the Horn of Africa at Meta; and Dennis Chepkwony, director of the Universal Service Fund at Kenya’s Communications Authority.
A second session, “Nigeria’s Digital Infrastructure Opportunity,” focused specifically on the country’s connectivity and data-centre market, including Project BRIDGE and new regulatory guidelines aimed at stimulating local demand for data-centre, cloud and computing capacity.
The session brought together officials and industry executives including Inuwa Abdullahi; Jay Katatumba, senior investment director at Africa50 Infrastructure Acceleration Fund; Lanre Kolade, CEO of Koltronics Nigeria and adviser to Project BRIDGE; Gbenga Adegbiji, CEO of Geniserve and technical adviser to Project BRIDGE; Niraj Shah, general manager of the Data Centre Programme at Bayobab Africa; Ike Nnamani, CEO of Digital Realty Nigeria; Wole Abu, managing director for West Africa at Equinix; and Cherotich Kiereini, senior infrastructure strategy adviser at Oracle.
HCA said it would consolidate the conference’s recommendations into an Africa Digital Infrastructure Delivery Agenda 2026, covering regulation, capital, power, connectivity, data centres, cloud, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and regional integration.
The conference also recognised 12 individuals for their contributions to the development of Africa’s digital economy and highlighted 100 women working across telecommunications, technology, infrastructure, policy, finance and related fields.
