Data Centers in Lagos

Lagos – West Africa's Primary Interconnection Hub

Lagos is the premier data center market for businesses targeting West Africa's rapidly expanding digital economy. Its dense connectivity and status as a key landing point for subsea cables provide the lowest latency access to millions of consumers and enterprises in the region, directly impacting application performance and revenue growth. This makes Lagos an essential gateway for any company serious about serving Nigeria and neighboring countries.

Lagos: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Lagos is the undisputed connectivity leader in West Africa, serving as the primary entry point for international data and a hub for regional traffic exchange.

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: The market features excellent carrier density, with over 12 network providers operating in the metro as of September 2025. Carrier-neutral facilities provide a competitive environment for interconnection, reducing costs and improving network resilience.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: Direct cloud access is available, with over 1 on-ramp enabling dedicated connections to 1 cloud region as of September 2025. AWS provides a local on-ramp, allowing businesses to build reliable hybrid cloud solutions that connect private infrastructure directly to the public cloud.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): The Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) is the key peering point in the country. Peering at IXPN keeps local traffic within Nigeria, drastically reducing latency for domestic users and improving overall application performance.

Bare Metal: Bare metal cloud providers are readily available in Lagos. Companies like Hivelocity and Latitude.sh offer dedicated server solutions for workloads requiring maximum performance and security without the overhead of virtualization.

Power Analysis

Managing power is a critical operational consideration in Lagos, but one that established data center operators have successfully engineered solutions for.

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial power is priced at approximately ₦24.60/kWh as of September 2025. While the rate is competitive, the total cost of power for data centers includes the significant expense of maintaining resilient backup generation systems.

Power Grid Reliability: The local power grid is unreliable. Consequently, all data centers in Lagos are built with extensive N+1 or 2N redundant UPS systems and multiple on-site diesel generators with substantial fuel reserves to ensure continuous uptime.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Lagos provides a strategic base for accessing one of the largest and fastest-growing consumer markets in Africa.

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers are located with strategic access to the commercial hubs of Victoria Island and Ikeja. This proximity serves the finance, e-commerce, and technology sectors that are concentrated in these districts.

Regional Market Reach: From Lagos, businesses can effectively serve Nigeria's population of over 200 million people. Its superior connectivity also makes it the optimal location for delivering services to neighboring West African countries.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: Nigeria's Pioneer Status Incentive provides a significant financial benefit for data center operators and their customers. This incentive can grant a corporate income tax holiday, reducing the overall cost of deploying network and telecommunications infrastructure.

Natural Disaster Risk

The INFORM Risk score for Nigeria is 7.0 out of 10, indicating a Very High risk environment as of September 2025. For data center planning, the primary natural hazards are environmental rather than seismic.

Key risks include:

• River Flood: 8.2/10
• Coastal Flood: 6.5/10
• Drought: 3.1/10

The risk from earthquakes and tropical cyclones is negligible. Data center site selection and facility engineering are focused on mitigating flood risk through elevated infrastructure and robust water management systems.