MTN Nigeria Communications Plc has officially commenced the monetization of its flagship Dabengwa Data Centre.
The facility, named after the legendary telecoms pioneer Cyril Dabengwa, has successfully onboarded its first set of enterprise and public-sector customers, marking MTN’s evolution from a mobile carrier to a full-spectrum Digital Infrastructure provider.
“We commenced monetisation of the Dabengwa Data Centre, onboarded the first set of customers to the MTN Cloud marketplace and built public sector partnerships focused on digital transformation use cases,” MTN Nigeria said in notes accompanying its audited Full Year 2025 financial statements.
This pivot is already reflecting in the bottom line, with the company’s “Other Revenue” segment—which houses cloud, enterprise and ICT services—surging by 22.7% to ₦44.54 billion in 2025.
The Dabengwa AI Advantage: Reliability & Scale
The Dabengwa Data Centre is not just a co-location site; it is Nigeria’s first major facility built with a “Native AI” architecture designed to handle the massive compute demands of modern Nigerian enterprises.
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AI-Enhanced Reliability: The facility leverages Artificial Intelligence to predict power fluctuations and cooling needs, aiming for 99.99% uptime in a challenging local infrastructure environment.
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The Cloud Marketplace: MTN has launched its own Cloud Marketplace, allowing Nigerian SMEs and government agencies to purchase software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions locally, reducing the need for FX-denominated payments to global providers.
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Public Sector Partnerships: The centre is currently hosting several “Digital Transformation” use cases for the Nigerian government, likely to include digitized revenue collection and national identity management systems.
The 9MW data centre is being developed in two phases, with the first phase being the 4.5MW Tier 3 facility valued at US$120 million, that is now live.
The company emphasised that the data centre’s power and cooling systems are fully modular and distributed across three floors, enhancing both efficiency and reliability.
MTN Nigeria CEO Kar Toriola has emphasised the importance of this centre in advancing artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and enterprise solutions.
Toriola also highlighted the centre’s pay-as-you-use model, with services priced in naira, as a significant benefit for companies aiming to reduce costs and navigate foreign exchange challenges.
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