AI

Nigeria Must Become Global Producer of AI-Enabled Value – NITDA DG

Published on August 28, 2026

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has called on Nigeria to move beyond the consumption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and position itself as a major producer of AI-enabled solutions for Africa and the global market.

NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, made the call at the Huawei Nigeria AI and Cloud Summit 2026 in Lagos, where he was represented by the Director of Digital Services, Oladejo Olawumi.

Speaking on the theme, “Built Local, Built Intelligent,” Abdullahi said Nigeria’s priority should now be to translate the country’s growing AI momentum into jobs, stronger businesses, improved public services and globally competitive innovations.

He disclosed that more than 700,000 Nigerians had been reached through various AI skills initiatives, while over 120 active AI ventures were operating across different sectors.

According to him, Nigeria has also attracted more than $1.85 billion in AI-related infrastructure and investment commitments, highlighting the growing importance of the sector to the country’s digital economy.

The NITDA boss stressed the need for stronger partnerships to deepen Nigeria’s domestic technological capabilities, noting that the agency is working with Huawei and other stakeholders on the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative.

He said the initiative is aimed at developing a secure, resilient and investable cloud and data-centre ecosystem that can support Nigeria’s digital transformation.

“Digital sovereignty is not technological isolation. It means investing in local cloud capacity, developing Nigerian engineers and researchers, supporting startups, and creating opportunities for Nigerian companies in technology supply and delivery chains,” Abdullahi said.

He added that NITDA would continue to collaborate with government, industry, academia, startups and global technology companies to translate Nigeria’s digital strategies into infrastructure, investment and local capacity.