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Nigeria is in advanced talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google for a new undersea cable to strengthen the West African nation’s digital resilience, a senior government official said.
The move, confirmed by Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), is a strategic maneuver to eliminate what he termed a “single point of failure” in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure.
Most existing cables currently follow similar geographic paths to Europe, making the nation’s ₦100 trillion digital economy vulnerable to singular maritime accidents.
The country wants to augment existing undersea links with Europe, said Abdullahi.
A Google spokesperson confirmed that talks were at an advance stage but declined to comment further.
Africa has suffered a series of internet outages due to damaged subsea cable, while the continent that is home to the world’s fastest-growing population, has a mounting demand for improved access to advanced technology including artificial intelligence.
Abdullahi, speaking in an interview in the capital, Abuja, said that Nigeria was talking to other tech giants alongside Google. Beyond connectivity, the nation also seeks to enhance investment in its digital infrastructure to improve access to reliable cloud and computer power needed to broaden its use of high-tech tools.
He said such investment could help turn Nigeria into a regional digital hub while supporting internet access and boosting economic activity in Africa’s most populous nation which plans a $1 trillion economy by 2030.
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