The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) says it is directing capital toward digital infrastructure and technology ventures it considers central to the country’s economic future, arguing that computing power has become as strategically important as oil or minerals in today’s global economy.
In a statement outlining its technology strategy, the sovereign wealth fund said reliable data storage, cloud capacity, and secure digital systems now underpin economic growth and national competitiveness, and that countries lacking this infrastructure risk falling behind as artificial intelligence reshapes global industry.
The centerpiece of that strategy is the KASI Hyperscale Data Centre, a domestically built facility offering cloud computing, data storage, and high-performance GPU processing to sectors including banking, telecommunications, healthcare, education, and government.
NSIA said the project was designed to reduce the foreign exchange Nigerian banks, government agencies, and e-commerce firms currently spend on offshore data hosting.
Once fully built out, the KASI campus is expected to reach roughly 100 megawatts of capacity, which NSIA says would rank it among Africa’s largest AI-ready data centre developments.
NSIA Managing Director and CEO Aminu Umar-Sadiq has pushed for digital infrastructure to become a core pillar of the authority’s investment approach, the statement said, alongside more traditional priorities like transportation and power.
Beyond KASI, NSIA pointed to several other technology-focused initiatives: the NSIA Prize for Innovation, which provides mentorship and capacity-building support to early-stage Nigerian entrepreneurs; a $50 million impact investment fund launched with Japan’s International Cooperation Agency to back tech-driven businesses tackling social and economic challenges; and exposure through its Future Generations Fund to venture capital and private equity managers investing in high-growth technology firms, including companies in broadband, cybersecurity, and enterprise software.
The authority framed the initiatives as complementary, with venture and private equity investments feeding market knowledge back into large infrastructure projects like KASI, while KASI in turn provides the computing backbone for the broader digital economy the fund is trying to cultivate.
NSIA said the combined effort is meant to create engineering, software, and cybersecurity jobs, attract foreign investment in local data infrastructure, and lower the cost of scaling for Nigerian startups and small businesses.
“The age of artificial intelligence is not coming; it is here,” the authority said, adding that its goal is for Nigeria to serve as “a builder, a host, and a leader” in the AI era rather than a bystander.
