Africa’s data centre demand is projected to increase between three and five times by 2030, potentially triggering $10 billion to $20 billion in new investment in data centre facilities and supporting power infrastructure across the continent.
The projection was contained in the Africa Report 2026/27 by global real estate consultancy Knight Frank, which said the continent’s data centre industry is moving from potential to active deployment as new facilities emerge across several markets.
According to the report, the anticipated rise in demand will be driven by the localisation of cloud services, growing video streaming consumption, the expansion of fintech platforms and the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence workloads.
Although Africa’s installed data centre capacity remains a fraction of global supply, Knight Frank said the growth trajectory is increasingly encouraging, with operators and developers moving ahead with projects in multiple markets.
In West Africa, Nigeria remains the region’s key data centre market, supported by its large enterprise base, access to multiple subsea cable systems and growing regulatory emphasis on local data hosting.
Knight Frank estimated Nigeria’s third-party core and shell data centre capacity at about 66 megawatts as of late 2024, with several hundred megawatts of additional capacity in the development pipeline.
The consultancy said Lagos is likely to remain central to the medium-term investment outlook, positioning the city as a low-latency digital hub for markets across the Economic Community of West African States.
The expansion is also being supported by increasing enforcement of data localisation requirements, particularly in the financial services and public sectors, which is encouraging organisations to keep more data and digital infrastructure within national or regional boundaries.
However, Knight Frank noted that the continent’s data centre opportunity is being constrained by challenges including land acquisition, permitting processes and inadequate infrastructure readiness.
“Investors consistently identify title certainty, rezoning timelines, and municipal approvals as key friction points, particularly in emerging markets,” the report stated.
In response, developers are increasingly turning to joint venture arrangements with local developers and telecommunications companies that already control suitable land and have a better understanding of municipal approval processes.
Regulation is also emerging as an important factor in determining where new data centre capacity will be developed. Knight Frank noted that data localisation requirements are expanding across African markets, although the rules and their enforcement vary from one country to another.
The report said operators are therefore weighing the advantages of “cloud-friendly” jurisdictions that permit regional service delivery against markets with stricter localisation requirements, where the potential customer base may be largely limited to domestic demand.
