Equinix is ramping up its African ambitions with a $100 million investment plan in Nigeria over the next two years, marking the clearest sign yet that the country has become ground zero in the race to power Africa’s digital economy.
The crown jewel of this expansion is LG3, a $22 million data center set to break ground in Lagos’s Lekki corridor and open its doors in Q1 2026. The facility represents Equinix’s first ground-up build in West Africa and a strategic escalation in what industry insiders are calling the region’s “data center war.”
The move comes less than three years after Equinix made its initial play for the West African market, acquiring MainOne—a major digital infrastructure and subsea cable provider—for $320 million in 2022. That deal gave Equinix instant presence across Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire, along with critical submarine cable assets connecting the region to global networks.
Now, the company is making it clear that acquisition was just the opening gambit.
Why Lagos, Why Now
The timing and location are no accident. Lagos has emerged as the epicenter of Africa’s tech boom, with the Lekki corridor transforming into the continent’s answer to Silicon Valley. The area already hosts a constellation of tech companies, submarine cable landing stations, and data infrastructure that makes it the natural hub for digital services across West Africa.
“LG3 marks a significant milestone in Equinix’s long-term commitment to bridging Africa’s digital divide,” said Wole Abu, Managing Director for West Africa at Equinix. “As Lagos emerges at the crossroads of talent, innovation, and global connectivity, this facility is accelerating access to technologies like cloud, AI, and the next wave of startups.”
The infrastructure gap Abu references is real and massive. Despite Africa’s rapidly growing digital economy, the continent remains severely underserved by data center capacity. Nigerian enterprises and startups have long struggled with latency issues from relying on servers located in Europe or North America, while regulatory pressure is mounting for data localization.
The Competitive Landscape Heats Up
Equinix’s expansion doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The company faces mounting competition in Nigeria from both regional players and global giants sensing the same opportunity. The Nigerian data center market has seen a flurry of activity in recent years, with operators racing to capture market share in what’s projected to be one of Africa’s fastest-growing digital infrastructure markets.
The $100 million commitment over two years suggests Equinix isn’t just protecting its MainOne investment—it’s preparing for a protracted battle for market dominance. LG3 is explicitly positioned as the first phase of this broader plan, with additional facilities likely to follow as demand scales.
For context, Equinix operates over 260 data centers globally across 72 metro areas, serving more than 10,000 customers. The company’s model revolves around creating interconnection hubs where enterprises, cloud providers, and network operators can directly exchange traffic. This ecosystem effect becomes more powerful as more players join each facility, creating natural moats around established locations.
What It Means for African Tech
The implications extend far beyond data storage. Equinix’s expansion could fundamentally reshape how African startups and enterprises build and scale digital services.
Reduced latency means better user experiences for everything from mobile banking apps to streaming services. Local data centers also address growing regulatory requirements around data sovereignty and localization—issues that have complicated operations for many tech companies serving African users.
Perhaps most significantly, facilities like LG3 lower the barriers for AI development and deployment across the continent. Training machine learning models and running inference at scale requires robust infrastructure. As Abu noted, the facility aims to “accelerate access to technologies like cloud, AI, and the next wave of startups.”
The cloud angle is particularly important. All major cloud providers—AWS, Azure, Google Cloud—are expanding their African footprint. Equinix’s interconnection model positions it to be the neutral meeting point where enterprises connect to multiple cloud services, creating optionality and reducing vendor lock-in.
The Road Ahead
The Q1 2026 timeline for LG3 gives Equinix just over a year to complete construction and commissioning. The company will need to navigate Nigeria’s complex regulatory environment, infrastructure challenges, and power reliability issues that have plagued many data center projects in the region.
But if successful, LG3 could serve as the template for Equinix’s broader African expansion strategy. The $100 million envelope suggests at least three to four additional facilities could be in the pipeline, potentially extending beyond Lagos to other Nigerian cities or neighboring markets.
For now, all eyes are on Lekki. As Africa’s digital economy accelerates, the infrastructure being built today will determine which companies and countries capture the value tomorrow. Equinix is making a big bet that Lagos—and Nigeria more broadly—will be at the center of that transformation.
And with $100 million committed, it’s a bet the company appears willing to defend.
