• Nigeria’s internet traffic and per-user data consumption have hit record highs.
• This surge is driving urgent demand for resilient, high-capacity data-center infrastructure.
• Facilities like Digital Realty’s new LKK2 are now essential to meet the country’s growing digital needs.

Digital Realty, a provider of carrier-neutral data centers, colocation, and interconnection solutions, has announced the opening of its third data center in Lagos. The move, announced August 22, underscores the company’s commitment to accelerating digital transformation across West Africa.

Ike Nnamani, Managing Director, Digital Realty Nigeria, commented on the development, saying, “Our continued investment in Nigeria and the broader African region reinforces our commitment to enabling seamless global interconnectivity and providing a future-ready infrastructure platform for local and global enterprises.”

The new facility, LKK2, located in Lekki, adds nearly 2MW of IT capacity across 13,000 square feet of data hall space, addressing Nigeria’s surging demand for scalable and high-performance digital infrastructure. LKK2 will be fully integrated with LKK1, Digital Realty’s first Lagos facility, and the landing station for the 2Africa subsea cable, which connects more than 46 landing points in 33 countries across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

By linking to the 2Africa cable, businesses in Nigeria and West Africa gain access to low-latency connectivity and enhanced access to international digital ecosystems. The facility will also connect with ServiceFabric®, Digital Realty’s global interconnection and orchestration platform, enabling seamless, high-speed connectivity to both LOS1—the region’s top internet peering point—and LOS2, the company’s highly connected data centers on Victoria Island, Lagos. Together, this ecosystem provides enterprises and hyperscalers with the resilience, redundancy, and scalability needed to compete in an increasingly digital economy.

The expansion comes at a pivotal moment for Nigeria’s data market. According to the National Communication Commission (NCC) data, over the last two and a half years, the average Nigerian internet subscription has seen monthly data usage more than double—from 3.3GB in January 2023 to 7.4GB in May 2025—even as the number of active subscriptions remained relatively flat and even dipped in 2024 following a nationwide SIM deactivation exercise. This trend underscores that data growth is now being driven by more intensive usage per individual connection, rather than by new subscribers.

Despite fluctuations in subscriptions, total internet traffic has continued to rise, fueled by demand for streaming, social media, online education, and remote work. A turning point came in 2024, when monthly usage per subscription crossed 5GB for the first time and has since remained consistently above 6GB. For Nigeria’s digital economy, this signals a structural shift in consumption habits—and a pressing need for high-capacity, low-latency infrastructure.

This is where facilities like LKK2 become critical. By expanding Nigeria’s data center backbone, Digital Realty is helping enterprises, service providers, and content platforms meet the country’s rapidly intensifying digital demands.

Digital Realty’s journey in Nigeria builds on the legacy of Medallion Data Centres, which it acquired in 2021. The Nigerian operator was formally rebranded as Digital Realty in October 2023, marking a new phase of integration into the company’s global platform of more than 300 facilities in over 50 cities worldwide.

Expected to become fully operational later this year, LKK2 will support both local enterprises and multinational corporations, empowering businesses with the digital backbone to grow, scale, and innovate.

Hikmatu Bilali